ENGLISH  MEN    OF   LETTERS 

EMERSON 


ENGLISH   MEN   OF    LETTERS 


RALPH     WALDO 
EMERSON 


BY 
GEORGE  EDWARD   WOODBERRY 


gorfc 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 


All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1907, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  January,  1907. 
Reprinted  September,  1907. 


Nortoooto 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


NOTE 

THE  main  sources  for  Emerson's  biography  are  James 
Elliot  Cabot's  Memoir  and  E.  W.  Emerson's  Emerson 
in  Concord.  These,  together  with  Emerson's  works, 
afford  the  basis  of  the  present  volume,  and  for  the 
use  which  has  been  made  of  them  the  author  takes 
pleasure  in  thanking  the  publishers,  Messrs.  Houghton, 
Miftiin,  and  Co.,  who  kindly  granted  the  necessary  per 
mission.  Other  illustrations  of  Emerson's  character 
and  career  are  found  scattered  in  the  reminiscences  of 
his  contemporaries,  particularly  in  the  volumes  by 
Conway,  Ireland,  Albee,  Alcott,  Haskins,  Sanborn, 
and  Holmes ;  but  these  writers  add  little  except  detail. 
Two  other  small  books  deserve  mention  for  their 
excellent  rendering  of  Emerson's  personality  in  old 
age,  —  J.  B.  Thayer's  A  Western  Journey  with  Mr. 
Emerson,  and  C.  J.  Woodbury's  Talks  with  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson.  TJie  Correspondence  of  Emerson  with 
Carlyle  and  his  Letters  to  a  Friend,  both  edited  by 
C.  E.  Xorton,  and  other  letters  to  Hermann  Grimm 
and  to  a  classmate,  published  respectively  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  May,  1903,  and  the  Century,  July, 
1883,  complete  the  list  of  sources. 

G.    E.    WOODBERRY. 
BEVERLY,  MASSACHUSETTS, 
November  11,  1906. 


v 


n  o  n 

*J  f-v  O 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.     THE  VOICE  OBEYED  AT  PRIME         ....  1 

II.     "NATURE"  AND  ITS  COROLLARIES  ....  44 

III.  "TiiE  HYPOCRITIC  DAYS" 64 

IV.  THE  ESSAYS .  107 

V.     THE  POEMS 158 

VI.      TERMINUS 178 

INDEX  199 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

CHAPTER   I 

THE    VOICE    OBEYED    AT    PRIME 

EMERSOX  leaves  a  double  image  on  the  mind  that  has 
dwelt  long  upon  his  memory.  He  is  a  shining  figure 
as  on  some  Mount  of  Transfiguration ;  and  he  was  a 
parochial  man.  In  one  aspect  he  is  of  kin  with  old 
Ionian  philosophers,  with  no  more  shreds  of  time  and 
place  than  those  sons  of  the  morning  who  first  brought 
the  light  of  intellect  into  this  world ;  in  the  other  he 
is  a  Bostonian,  living  in  a  parish  suburb  of  the  city, 
stamped  with  peculiarity,  the  product  of  tradition,  the 
creature  of  local  environment.  One  is  the  image  to 
the  mind  ;  the  other  to  the  senses.  One  is  of  the  soul, 
of  eternity;  the  other,  of  the  body,  of  time.  It  is 
difficult  to  focus  such  a  nature;  to  find  the  axis  of 
identity  ;  even  the  ray  of  truth  is  here  doubly  refracted, 
on  one  side  into  ideality,  on  the  other  into  incomple- 
tion,  the  meaniuglessness  of  matters  of  fact,  uncon- 
cerning  things.  But  to  Emerson  himself  his  life  was 
of  one  piece,  and  seemed  so,  because  he  looked  on  it 
from  a  point  within,  from  that  centre  of  integrity  upon 
which  his  being  revolved  as  a  personal  law  unto  itself. 
It  is  there  that  the  mind  must  fix  its  insight.  The 

B  1 


;WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

spijil  m  flatter  "  was  his  biography .  It 
is  ia  Singularly  personal  life  whose  overmastering  in 
terest  is  in  the  soul  that  lived  it,  not  in  events,  not  in 
the  crisis  of  the  times,  not  in  circumstance,  in  family, 
in  friendships,  in  nothing  but  the  man  himself,  —  a 
strangely  isolated,  strangely  exalted  soul  who  came  to 
light  in  New  England  as  other  such  souls  have  been 
born  in  out-of-the-way  places  on  earth  since  the  spiritual 
history  of  man  began.  And,  as  was  the  case  with  them, 
there  was  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  in  his  origins 
and  the  condition  of  his  life ;  he  was,  in  all  ways,  one 
of  his  own  people. 

He  was  born,  May  25,  1803,  in  the  old  parish  house 
of  the  First  Church  of  Boston,  on  Summer  Street,  in 
a  neighbourhood  of  gardens  and  open  spaces  of  pasture, 
characteristic  of  a  large  rural  town,  not  far  from  tide 
water  and  not  far  from  the  State  House  on  Beacon 
Hill.  From  this  environment  he  never  travelled  far 
in  the  journey  of  his  life.  Heredity  slept  strong  in 
the  boy.  There  was  the  special  strain  of  clerical  selec 
tion  in  his  father's  family,  much  dwelt  upon,  as  if  the 
seven  Puritan  ministers  of  this  ancestry  — 

"  Were  as  seven  phials  of  his  sacred  blood"  ; 

but  nature  had  laid  a  broader  base.  There  was  no  caste 
in  the  old  New  England  blood;  the  early  stocks  mingled 
and  in  any  long-descended  stream  were  one ;  born  in 
the  seventh  generation,  Emerson  derived  from  many 
sources  and  was  of  the  kin,  one  of  the  children  of 
Puritanism  in  that  much  inbred  race,  like  Hawthorne 
or  Phillips,  drawing  from  the  whole  soil.  He  was  a 
communal  child.  The  religious  element  in  him,  so  far 
as  it  was  priestly  and  Levitical,  was  rather  a  thing  of 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT  PRIME  3 

home-breeding  than  of  physical  heredity ;  and  as  he 
grew  away  from  the  church,  he  returned  to  an  old 
wild  virtue  of  the  blood  that  was  the  blood  of  freemen. 
Upon  the  side  of  his  mother,  Ruth  Haskins,  his  ex 
traction  was  lay  and  practical.  Her  father,  a  good  old 
man  of  energetic  and  religious  habit,  was  a  cooper  and 
distiller,  who  traced  his  origin  only  one  generation, 
while  by  way  of  amendment  he  left  forty-six  grandchil 
dren.  But,  whoever  were  the  many  forbears,  the  boy 
was  first  of  all  his  father's  son,  an  Emerson ;  he  was 
never  allowed  in  his  growing  up  to  forget  that  fact,  — 
his  fundamental  duty  in  life  was  to  maintain  the  name. 
Family  pride  was  an  important  trait  of  old  New  Eng 
land  ;  it  was  not  dependent  on  wealth,  past  or  present ; 
it  was  entirely  self-sufficient.  The  Emersons  had  it. 
If,  as  their  Aunt  Mary,  the  family  Sibyl,  said,  they 
"  were  born  to  be  educated,"  they  were  educated  to  be 
Emersons.  In  those  stern  and  uncommunicating  pa 
rental  days,  the  tradition  of  life  from  father  to  son 
was  perhaps  most  deeply  felt  by  this  spur  and  example 
of  the  blood.  Emerson,  in  his  opening  years,  naturally 
turned  to  his  father's  family  and  this  line  of  ministers 
who  were  held  up  to  him  for  admonition,  — what  the 
family  had  been ;  he  felt  in  them  near  and  personal  ex 
amples  of  the  Puritan  ideal ;  moral  essence  streamed 
into  him  from  this  family  sentiment.  Nor  was  this 
Puritan  ideal,  as  it  so  touched  the  slim  heir  at  the 
hearthstone,  a  narrow  one ;  it  displayed  a  many-sided 
sufficiency  for  life  in  the  new  settlements.  Perhaps 
none  of  these  silent  figures  came  so  near  to  him,  in  the 
generosities  of  boyhood,  as  his  grandfather  William, 
the  young  minister  of  Concord  who  before  daybreak 
of  the  fight  encouraged  his  parishioners  on  the  village 


4  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

green  and  could  hardly  be  restrained  from  standing 
with  them  there,  and  soon  afterward,  joining  the 
patriot  army  at  Ticonderoga  as  chaplain,  died  of 
camp  fever. 

Of  his  father,  Emerson  remembered  little  more  than 
the  grandeur  of  his  funeral.  Sixty  coaches  and  the 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery,  whose  chaplain  he 
was,  followed  him  to  the  grave.  This  cultivated 
preacher,  as  minister  of  the  First  Parish  of  Boston, 
held  an  honoured  position  in  the  city.  Preaching 
was  to  Boston  the  chief  art  and  ornament  of  its  life. 
The  Puritans  had  brought  it  over  in  their  ark ;  it  was 
the  highest  exercise  of  the  chosen  spirits  among 
them,  generation  after  generation ;  and  in  their  head- 
city  on  the  three  hills  it  had  a  history  not  unlike 
that  of  a  fine  art  in  more  famous  towns.  The  dog 
matic  force  of  Peter  Bulkeley  and  the  fiery  vehemence 
of  Father  Moody  —  both  ancestral  strains  in  Emer 
son  —  had  gone  by,  with  their  rude  and  primitive 
traits  ;  there  had  now  come  a  more  cultivated  age  — 
what  the  fashion  of  that  generation  would  have 
called  almost  a  Sophoclean  hour  —  a  time  of  modula 
tion  of  voice  and  sweet  temper  in  speech,  of  rhetoric 
and  eloquence,  within  whose  decorum  was  bred  the 
good  taste  of  a  Boston  parish.  Decorum,  indeed,  held 
a  place  among  the  idols  of  the  congregation  as  firm 
as  in  any  ritualistic  establishment;  so  independent  of 
creed  and  sect  is  form  in  religion  when  long  prac 
tised  on  any  soil.  The  chief  of  these  "  golden-lips  " 
was  Channing,  the  flower  of  the  art  of  Boston  in  his 
high  pulpit,  so  inaccessibly  cold  in  the  body,  so 
spiritually  transporting  when  only  a  voice.  There 
were  other  examples.  Historically  these  men  an- 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT  PRIME  5 

nounced  the  latter  days  of  Puritanism  :  and  if  they 
put  forth  colours  of  the  mind  and  heart  that  wrapped 
their  little  world  with  a  quiet  and  sacred  beauty  in 
the  solemn  Sabbath  stillness,  it  was  an  autumnal 
flame  like  that  upon  the  Suffolk  hillsides,  and 
signalized  the  deciduous  power  of  time.  Old  religion 
found  in  them  its  decadents ;  orthodoxy  spurned  them 
as  a  sophist  race,  dissolvers  of  the  ancient  faith, 
rationalizers,  mere  moralists,  for  it  is  essential  to 
mark  the  fact  that  Emerson  was  born  into  a  culture 
already  struck  with  mental  death;  he  experienced 
in  himself  this  dying  away,  in  youth  and  early  man 
hood ;  and  the  core  of  interest  in  his  life  is  how 
his  soul  lived  on,  and  on  what  strength  maintained, 
after  that  death.  Of  this  race  of  Boston  preachers 
was  his  father,  William  Emerson,  fluent,  clear,  and 
polished  in  discourse,  of  social  habits  and  literary 
tastes,  a  quiet  moralist  in  the  pulpit,  no  formalist, 
with  the  public  functions  natural  to  his  position,  the 
chaplaincy  of  the  State  Senate,  the  delivery  of  the 
Election  Sermon ;  editor,  too,  of  the  Monthly  An 
thology,  suggester  and  supporter  of  the  first  learned 
societies  and  libraries  of  the  city.  He  filled  his  place 
and  was  of  his  times,  a  bland  and  pleasant  gentleman, 
a  tolerant  clergyman,  handsome,  tall,  and  fair,  with 
tinted  cheeks,  welcome  at  dinners,  in  literary  con 
versations,  on  civic  occasions,  —  a  man  of  the  cloth  in 
those  days,  a  Boston  minister.  But  grandeur  in  the 
pulpit  is  nigh  to  week-day  dust,  and  the  intellectual 
life  in  that  democracy  was  not  exempt  from  its  eternal 
law  of  earning  only  living  wages ;  and  dying  at  the 
age  of  forty-two,  the  minister  left  his  family  to  a 
period  of  trust  in  Providence  —  a  normal  condition 


6  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

for  Emersons,  whatever  the  dispensation  —  tempered 
by  an  allowance  from  the  parish  of  five  hundred 
dollars  annually  for  seven  years. 

In  that  simple  community  such  a  change  of  fortune 
was  not  in  itself  remarkable;  the  early  death  of  the 
father  of  a  family  was  necessarily  such  a  catastrophe. 
The  burden  fell  upon  the  mother ;  the  boys  would 
grow  up  and  in  time  things  would  again  fall  into 
comfortable  order;  life  went  on  in  this  hope.  The 
boys  in  this  case  were  five,  —  William,  Ralph,  Edward, 
Bulkeley,  and  Charles;  Bulkeley  was  mentally  de 
ficient,  and  was  cared  for  all  his  life ;  there  was 
also  a  baby-sister.  Two  children  had  previously  died. 
William,  the  eldest  surviving,  was  ten,  and  from  an 
early  age,  and  prematurely  for  a  child,  shared  with 
his  mother  the  responsibility  and  strain  .of  their 
straitened  means.  She  impressed  her  friends  most 
by  the  serenity  of  her  mind ;  she  was  at  work  early 
and  late,  firm  in  discipline  and  undemonstrative  of 
her  affections,  though  her  smile  is  recalled,  of  good 
and  sensible  speech,  soft  in  her  manners,  and  in  her 
demeanour  characterized  by  a  quiet  dignity.  She  took 
in  boarders.  The  object  of  the  family  life  was  to  live 
and  educate  the  boys.  Emerson,  then  eight,  was  sent 
to  the  public  grammar  school ;  his  education  had  be 
gun  at  the  age  of  two,  at  a  dame-school,  and  just  before 
he  was  three  his  father  had  remarked  that  he  did  not 
read  very  well;  at  ten  he  entered  the  Latin  School. 
The  other  boys  were  at  their  several  stations  in  the 
same  career.  The  household  was  firmly  knit  together, 
with  peculiarly  close  ties  between  the  brothers,  owing 
to  the  sympathies  bred  in  the  identity  of  their  ideal  of 
the  future  and  the  isolation  of  their  self-help.  They 


i.]  THE    VOICE   OBEYED   AT  PRIME  7 

were  all  ministers  in  embryo.  They  lived  frugally 
and  were  trained  to  habits  of  going  without ;  to  serve 
God  when  man-grown,  and  finally  provide  for  the 
family  was  their  dearest  hope ;  they  were  bred  in  the 
thought  of  it.  They  helped  their  mother  at  home  as 
much  as  they  could,  and  at  one  time  cared  for  the 
vestry,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  earned  much  in 
boyish  ways:  two  of  them  shared  a  winter  coat  be 
tween  them,  jeered  at,  it  is  said,  by  other  boys.  Once 
Emerson,  having  spent  six  cents  on  a  novel  from  a 
circulating  library,  and  being  chided  by  his  Aunt  Mary 
for  such  an  expense  when  it  was  so  hard  for  his 
mother  to  obtain  the  money,  heeded  the  appeal,  and 
he  recalled  the  anecdote  because  he  had  never  finished 
the  novel.  These  are  trifles  that  show  the  life  of 
years.  Yet  the  Emerson  household  should  not  be 
thought  of  as,  in  its  kind,  an  unusual  family  group. 
There  were  scores  of  such  homes  in  old  New  England 
then  and  in  later  days,  with  just  such  a  scholastic 
strain  in  them,  such  moral  ambition  and  similar 
hardships. 

When  Emerson  was  eleven,  his  little  sister  died.  It  is 
on  the  morning  after  her  death  that  his  childish  figure 
is  first  clearly  seen.  He  read  the  Scriptures  at  family 
prayers,  and,  it  is  related,  prayed  "  with  a  grave  and 
sweet  composure."  He  was  then  the  "spiritual-look 
ing  boy  in  blue  nankeen,"  a  homely  garb,  that  a  school 
mate  photographed  on  his  memory.  The  habits  of 
the  family  were,  of  course,  pious.  There  were  morn 
ing  prayers,  in  conducting  which,  as  on  this  occasion, 
the  children  joined  ;  after  supper  they  said  hymns 
and  chapters,  and  Saturday  night  was  kept  as  a  Sab 
bath  season.  Emerson  records  the  history  of  a  day's 


8  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

doings  at  this  time.  He  rose  at  six,  made  the  fire,  set 
the  table  for  prayers,  and  joined  the  other  children  in 
a  spelling  lesson  before  breakfast ;  Latin  School  fol 
lowed  till  eleven,  writing  school  till  one,  dinner,  Latin 
School  at  two,  errands  after  school  and  chores,  supper, 
hymns  and  chapters,  and  reading  round  in  turn  Rol- 
lin's  history ;  then  private  devotions  at  eight,  ending 
the  day.  This  was  a  scheme  of  work  and  duty  fitted 
to  boyish  years  and  quite  in  the  manner  of  the  com 
mon  life  of  the  old  time  in  homes  of  family  religion. 
Whatever  interval  was  left  for  play,  duty  was  engross 
ing.  In  such  conditions  boys  matured  early  and  with 
precocious  moral  ambition  if  their  temperaments  re 
sponded  to  the  call. 

The  fibre  of  these  boys  was  toned  and  toughened 
by  their  Aunt  Mary,  a  sister  of  their  father,  who  in 
Emerson's  later  judgment  was  an  incomparable  "bless 
ing  in  their  education ;  she  was  their  goad.  At  that 
time  forty  years  old  and  single,  she  was  in  the  habit 
of  visiting  her  relatives,  a  welcome,  but  not  too  long 
welcome,  guest.  She  had  a  strong  mind  well  practised 
in  hard  reading,  and  her  monomania  with  respect  to 
the  shroud  had  not  reached  that  extreme  which  after 
ward  made  her  such  a  whimsical  figure  in  the  streets 
of  Concord  and  in  the  thoughts  of  her  kindred.  She 
was  of  a  type  of  lone  women  not  unknown  elsewhere 
in  New  England  — a  type  that  only  Scott's  hand  could 
make  relive  —  a  stern  enthusiast  attended  by  a  malady 
of  poverty,  solitude,  and  fervour.  She  had  a  passion  of 
admiration  for  genius,  for  moral  and  intellectual  suc 
cess,  and  she  made  herself  a  sitter  by  the  hearth  of 
these  boys,  ambitious  for  their  distinction,  fierce  and 
jealous  for  their  excellence,  a  continual  incitement  to 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED  AT  PRIME  9 

every  task  of  mind  or  character.  "  Always  do  what 
you  are  afraid  to  do"  was  her  best-remembered 
maxim;  and  all  her  sayings  Emerson  described  as 
"  high  counsels/''  When  bread  failed,  she  was  found  con 
soling  the  boys  with  stories  of  heroic  endurance.  It  is 
a  homely  picture  of  common  life,  and  doubtless  its  set 
ting  was  ordinary  and  humble ;  but  the  Spartan  trait,  in 
however  half-ludicrous  vesture,  as  befits  divine  things 
sojourning  on  earth,  was  there.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
these  boys  grew  up  wholly  under  the  hands  of  brave 
women,  though  with  some  external  assistance  from 
good  men. 

The  good  man  in  particular  was  Dr.  Ezra  Bipley, 
minister  of  Concord  and  second  husband  of  their 
grandmother  Emerson.  In  the  earlier  years  the  con 
nection  of  their  mother  with  her  own  family  was  close, 
especially  with  her  youngest  brother,  Ralph,  for  whom 
Emerson  was  named.  Before  her  husband's  death  the 
family  festivals  were  kept  on  that  side  of  the  house  ; 
Thanksgiving  united  all  at  her  home,  Christmas  at 
her  father's,  New  Years  and  Twelfth  Xight  at  a 
brother's  and  a  sister's.  But  her  father  died  in  1814, 
commemorated  in  heroic  verse  by  his  grandson  aged 
twelve  ;  and  though  frequent  intercourse  was  kept  up 
and  affectionate  relations  were  maintained,  as  time 
wore  on  intimacy  ceased  on  that  side.  It  was  in  1814, 
after  her  father's  death  and  in  the  time  of  the 
distresses  of  the  war  with  England,  which  pressed 
heavily  on  the  entire  community,  that  the  Concord 
connection  began  to  be  close.  Want  had  never  been 
far  away  from  the  family.  There  was  some  occasion 
for  prompt  action.  Dr.  Ripley,  a  substantial  citizen- 
minister  of  the  old  school,  took  the  entire  family  home 


10  RALPH   WALDO    EMERSON  [CHAP. 

with  him  to  the  Old  Manse  which  their  grandfather 
William  had  built.  Here  the  boys  had  schooling,  in 
terspersed  with  declamations  on  barrel-heads  in  the 
country  store  and  romps  in  Peter's  Field.  They  re 
turned  to  Boston,  to  boarders  and  the  Latin  School, 
the  next  year,  the  doctor  sending  a  cow  along  with 
them  —  the  one  which  Emerson  is  remembered  as 
driving  down  Beacon  Street  along  by  the  Common  to 
an  adjoining  pasture. 

Emerson  was  a  home  boy.  The  life  of  the  brothers 
was  contained  within  the  family ;  it  had  no  external 
side  that  is  salient  in  any  one's  recollections.  There 
were  no  chums,  no  adventures,  no  foray  into  nature  with 
boat  and  rifle.  He  was  never  given  to  games,  to  free- 
masonries  of  the  playground  and  the  street,  or  to  any 
intimacy  with  one  not  of  his  own  blood ;  to  these 
things  and  what  comes  of  them  he  was  all  his  life  a 
stranger.  He  stood  aloof,  not  wilfully  but  naturally. 
As  a  child  he  had  watched  the  rough  boys  from  Bound 
Point  go  up  to  customary  frays  with  "  West  Enders  " 
on  the  Common  ;  but  he  never  went  out  to  battle;  he 
seems  to  have  had  some  timidity  about  town  boys,  and 
gives  this  as  the  reason  for  his  never  owning  a  sled, 
and  his  only  appearance  resembling  warfare  was  on 
the  occasion  when  he  went  with  the  whole  school  to 
Noddle's  Island  to  assist  in  throwing  up  intrench- 
ments  against  a  threatened  descent  of  the  British  fleet. 
He  swam,  his  father  having,  much  to  his  terror,  forced 
him  occasionally  off  a  wharf  into  salt  water;  he 
first  learned  to  skate  as  well  as  to  smoke  at  college. 
He  and  his  brothers  were  absorbed  in  their  chores  and 
books,  and  fraternally  in  each  other.  "  I  can  as  little 
remember,"  says  Dr.  Furness,  who  knew  him  from  the 


i.]  THE  VOICE  OBEYED   AT  PRIME  11 

nursery,  "  when  he  was  not  literary  in  his  pursuits  as 
when  I  first  made  his  acquaintance." 

It  was  a  boyhood  of  study  ;  education  was  the  one 
gift  sought  ;  and  whether  in  Boston  or  at  Concord,  at 
school  or  in  the  country  store,  in  their  home  attic  or 
in  their  grandfather's  barn,  the  true  sport  of  these 
boys  was  literature.  They  were  bred  on  it.  They 
read,  of  course,  good  authors  and  improving  works ; 
but  what  most  attracted  them  was  the  form  of  good 
writing.  The  first  awakening  of  their  minds  was  to  a 
perception  of  rhetoric  and  to  the  sonorousness  of  de 
clamatory  poetry  and  to  the  poise  of  prose.  It  is  said 
that  schoolboys  then  went  wild  over  the  turn  of  a 
phrase,  the  fall  of  a  period.  They  all  heard  atten 
tively  many  sermons,  and  it  is  true  that  the  church  was 
an  early,  long-continued,  and  efficient  school  of  literary 
expression  in  the  community,  and  boybood  shared  in 
this  benefit.  A  certain  enthusiasm  even  might  be  im 
bibed  for  the  things  of  eloquent  discourse ;  such  was  the 
air  of  the  city  and  the  tone  of  life  there.  Oratory  flour 
ished,  it  should  be  remembered,  in  the  same  age  in  which 
the  literature  of  Boston  was  produced.  The  minds  of 
Boston  boys  were  excited  by  the  grace  of  spoken  words 
as  well  as  by  books ;  rhetoric  was  not  a  school-exercise, 
but  a  live  art,  and  poetry  was  for  this  group  of  boys  a 
higher  rhetoric.  Emerson  was  only  a  fair  scholar,  as 
the  phrase  is  used  of  schoolboys ;  but  in  this  happy 
environment  he  early  developed  a  spontaneous  literary 
faculty,  and  he  had  taken  to  rhyming  more  quickly 
than  to  prose.  At  ten  he  composed  a  heroic  poem, 
Fortus,  which  Dr.  Furness  illustrated ;  he  wrote  verses, 
and  declaimed  them,  on  the  naval  victories  of  the 
war;  and  he  commonly  interlarded  his  letters  to  his 


12  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

brothers  with  doggerel.  They  took  pride  in  him  as 
the  rhymer  of  the  family.  If  their  boyhood  was  lim 
ited  on  the  ruder  side,  they  had  an  abundant  life  in  their 
own  way,  and  did  not  differ  from  their  mates  except 
that  being  piously  bred  and  poor  and  not  gregarious,  — 
minister's  sons, —  some  things  were  omitted  from  their 
havings  ;  in  other  things  they  were  the  same.  They 
spelt  and  ciphered  and  had  catechism;  they  piled 
wood  in  the  yard,  like  all  New  England  boys ;  they 
waited  at  the  meeting-house  door  to  see  if  their  favour 
ite,  Edward  Everett,  would  preach  there  or  elsewhere ; 
they  read  novels  if  they  could  get  them ;  and  they  had 
a  peculiar  proud  carriage  of  the  head,  a  hereditary  trait. 
Emerson  concentrated  this  life  of  the  brothers  and 
borrowed  its  colours  for  the  generalized  picture  that  he 
drew  of  such  a  group  —  a  passage  which  by  its  old- 
fashioned  movement  and  antiquated  tone,  as  much  as 
by  its  details,  takes  us  back  into  a  vanished  world,  to 
the  heart  of  the  thoughts  and  habits  and  ideal  of  his 
people  as  well  as  to  his  own  childhood :  — 

"Who  has  not  seen,  and  who  can  see  unmoved,  under  a 
low  roof,  the  eager,  blushing  boys  discharging  as  they  can 
their  household  chores,  and  hastening  into  the  sitting-room 
to  the  study  of  to-morrow's  merciless  lesson,  yet  stealing  time 
to  read  one  chapter  more  of  the  novel  hardly  smuggled  into 
the  tolerance  of  father  and  mother,  —  atoning  for  the  same 
by  some  passages  of  Plutarch  or  Goldsmith ;  the  warm  sym 
pathy  with  which  they  kindle  each  other  in  school-yard 
or  barn,  or  wood-shed,  with  scraps  of  poetry  or  song,  with 
phrases  of  the  last  oration  or  mimicry  of  the  orator  ;  the 
youthful  criticism,  on  Sunday,  of  the  sermons ;  the  school 
declamation,  faithfully  rehearsed  at  home,  sometimes  to  the 
fatigue,  sometimes  to  the  admiration,  of  sisters ;  the  first  soli 
tary  joys  of  literary  vanity,  when  the  translation  or  the  theme 
has  been  completed,  sitting  alone  near  the  top  of  the  house ; 


i.J  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT  PRIME  13 

the  cautious  comparison  of  the  attractive  advertisement  of 
the  arrival  of  Macready,  Booth,  or  Kemble,  or  of  the  dis 
course  of  a  well-known  speaker,  with  the  expense  of  the 
entertainment;  the  affectionate  delight  with  which  they 
greet  the  return  of  each  one  after  the  early  separations 
which  school  or  business  requires  ;  the  foresight  with  which, 
during  such  absences,  they  hive  the  honey  which  oppor 
tunity  offers,  for  the  ear  and  imagination  of  the  others ;  and 
the  unrestrained  glee  with  which  they  disburden  themselves 
of  their  early  mental  treasures  when  the  holidays  bring 
them  again  together  ?  What  is  the  hoop  that  holds  them 
staunch?  It  is  the  iron  band  of  poverty,  of  necessity,  of 
austerity,  which,  excluding  them  from  the  sensual  enjoy 
ments  which  make  other  boys  too  early  old,  has  directed 
their  activity  into  safe  and  right  channels,  and  made  them, 
despite  themselves,  reverers  of  the  grand,  the  beautiful,  and 
the  good.  Ah,  short-sighted  students  of  books,  of  nature, 
and  of  man !  too  happy  could  they  know  their  advantages, 
they  pine  for  freedom  from  that  mild  parental  yoke ;  they 
sigh  for  fine  clothes,  for  rides,  for  the  theatre,  and  premature 
freedom  and  dissipation  which  others  possess.  Woe  to 
them  if  their  wishes  were  crowned !  The  angels  that  dwell 
with  them,  and  are  weaving  laurels  of  life  for  their  youthful 
brows,  are  Toil  and  Want  and  Truth  and  Mutual  Faith." 

The  period  of  home-education  was  followed  by  one 
of  college  years  and  school-keeping;  for  fourteen 
years  one  or  two  of  the  brothers  were  always  in  col 
lege,  and  teaching  was  the  family  means  of  support. 
Emerson  entered  Harvard  in  the  fall  of  1817,  in  his 
fifteenth  year.  William  had  gone  three  years  before, 
and  on  graduating  in  1818  taught  one  season  at 
Kennebunk  in  Maine  and  then  set  up  a  school  for 
young  ladies  in  Boston  in  his  mother's  house.  He 
was  the  head  of  the  family,  a  plain,  dutiful,  capable 
boy,  the  prop  of  the  home.  The  cost  of  Emerson's 
education  was  eased  in  various  ways,  and  the  expenses 


14  KALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

were,  of  course,  small.  He  was  appointed  President's 
Freshman,  or  messenger,  which  gave  him  lodging  in 
Wadsworth  House,  the  President's  residence.  He 
tutored  the  first  year,  and  taught  in  vacation  at  his 
uncle  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley's  school  at  Waltham.  He 
received  aid  from  the  Saltonstall  and  Penn  founda 
tions.  In  his  Sophomore  year  he  was  appointed  to 
wait  on  table  in  the  Junior  Hall,  which  excused  him 
from  three-fourths  of  the  cost  of  board.  "  I  do  like 
it  and  I  do  not  like  it,"  he  wrote  to  William,  "  for 
which  sentiments  you  can  easily  guess  the  reason." 
He  felt  his  dependent  situation,  and  was  warned  by 
his  Aunt  Mary  against  indulging  this  feeling.  How 
it  affected  his  bosom  thoughts  and  quickened  his  in 
stincts  is  seen  in  a  letter  of  his  Freshman  year  to 
William:  — 

"  Just  before  I  came  from  Boston  Mr.  Frothingham  sent 
mother  a  note  containing  twenty  dollars,  given  him  « by  a 
common  friend'  for  her,  with  a  promise  of  continuing  to 
her  ten  dollars  quarterly  for  the  use  of  her  sons  in  college  ; 
not  stipulating  the  time  of  continuance.  At  this  time  the 
assistance  was  peculiarly  acceptable  as  you  know.  It  is  in 
this  manner,  from  the  charity  of  others,  mother  never  has 
been,  and  from  our  future  exertions  I  hope  never  will  be,  in 
want.  It  appears  to  me  the  happiest  earthly  moment  my 
most  sanguine  hopes  can  picture,  if  it  should  ever  arrive,  to 
have  a  home  comfortable  and  pleasant,  to  offer  to  mother ; 
in  some  feeble  way  to  repay  her  for  the  cares  and  woes  and 
inconveniences  she  has  so  often  been  subject  to  on  our 
account  alone.  To  be  sure,  after  talking  at  this  rate,  I  have 
done  nothing  myself ;  but  then  I've  less  faculties  and  age 
than  most  poor  collegians.  But  when  I  am  out  of  college  I 
will,  Deo  volente,  study  divinity  and  keep  school  at  the  same 
time,  —  try  to  be  a  minister  and  have  a  house." 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT   PRIME  15 

Emerson  was  regarded  as  the  least  promising  of  the 
brothers,  and  he  had  the  least  successful  college 
career ;  he  was  not  especially  noticed,  either  at  school 
or  college,  by  his  teachers  or  his  classmates.  On  his 
own  side,  he  did  not  look  back  on  college  studies  as 
very  profitable  things,  and  he  habitually  wrote  slight 
ingly  of  collegiate  education  in  later  life.  It  was  this 
view  on  which  he  acted  as  a  student.  "To  tell  the 
truth,''  he  writes  to  "William,  "  I  do  not  think  it  neces 
sary  to  understand  mathematics  and  Greek  thoroughly 
to  be  a  good,  useful,  or  even  great  man."  His  old 
Latin  School  master,  concerned  for  his  boys,  visited 
him  in  his  room  to  remonstrate  with  him  on  his  defi 
ciencies  in  mathematics,  in  which  he  says  he  was  always 
a  "  hopeless  dunce."  He  did  not  succeed  too  well  with 
philosophy,  that  is,  Locke,  Stewart,  and  Paley.  The 
truth  is,  he  indulged  his  vein,  —  that  native  truancy  of 
mind  which  first  disclosed  itself  in  the  "  idle  books 
under  the  bench  at  the  Latin  School."  Colleges  never 
change ;  and  Emerson  was  as  homeless  as  his  kin 
have  always  been  in  college  halls.  The  only  school 
in  which  poets  ever  came  to  their  own'  was  Plato's 
Academy.  He  tried  to  do  his  duty  by  his  studies, 
but  it  was  against  the  grain.  There  were  some  allevi 
ations.  He  was  fortunate  in  having  Edward  Tyrrel 
Channing  as  his  instructor  in  rhetoric  the  last  two 
years,  and  he  heard  and  carefully  noted  the  lectures 
of  George  Ticknor.  The  best  of  his  education  he 
gave  to  himself  in  rambling  reading  and  incessant 
practice  in  writing,  and  by  that  note-book  in  which 
from  his  Junior  year  he  began  the  process  of  storing 
thoughts,  phrases,  suggestions,  horoscopes  of  essays 
and  paraphrases  of  reading,  for  future  use  ;  and,  doing 


16  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

this,  his  successes  were  in  the  line  of  his  talent.  He 
took  a  Bowdoin  prize  in  his  Junior  year  on  The 
Character  of  Socrates,  and  a  second  prize  in  the  Sen 
ior  year  on  The  Present  State  of  Ethical  Philoso 
phy,  to  the  surprise  of  his  teachers  ;  and  he  also 
took  a  Boylston  prize  for  declamation.  He  sent  the 
money  for  this  proudly  home,  hoping  "his  mother 
would  buy  a  new  shawl"  with  it,  but  William  assigned 
it  to  the  baker.  Perhaps  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart 
he  hoped  this  little  success  would  seem  some  amends 
for  his  deficiencies,  and  so  he  devoted  it  to  her.  He 
graduated  not  far  from  the  middle  of  the  class  in 
rank.  Summing  it  up,  he  said,  —  "A  chamber  alone, 
that  was  the  best  thing  I  found  at  college." 

Outside  of  his  studies  he  is  seen  in  the  brief  annals 
of  his  class,  and  as  an  unimportant  figure  in  their 
memories,  coming  up  to  the  groups  of  students  with 
his  President's  messages  or  in  walks  to  Mount  Auburn 
with  a  friend,  or  in  talks  with  the  same  friend  in  his 
Freshman  room,  where  he  had  a  volume  of  Montaigne, 
a  set  of  Shakespeare,  Swift,  Addison,  Sterne  —  books 
probably  brought  from  his  father's  library.  In  his 
three  later  years  he  roomed  at  5, 15,  and  9  Hollis  with 
his  classmates,  Dorr  and  Gourdin,  and  his  brother 
Edward,  in  turn.  He  was  younger  than  most  of 
his  class,  a  slender,  grave  boy,  not  physically  vigor 
ous  ;  he  was  not  popular,  though  well  liked,  and  he 
was  not  a  conspicuous  member.  He  was  of  a  sluggish 
nature,  and  reserved ;  he  had  as  a  child  among  his 
brothers  a  vein  of  silliness  with  which  he  reproached 
himself,  but  he  had  none  of  the  older  playfulness  of  a 
college  student,  though  as  a  listener  he  was  not  averse 
to  merriment  and  stories;  he  did  not  bashfully  or 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED  AT  PRIME  17 

sourly  withdraw  himself  from  his  fellows,  but  rather 
tried  to  overcome  the  barriers  of  his  nature.  He 
declared  lifelong  that  his  isolation  which  he  felt  from 
his  boyhood  was  not  wilful,  but  inevitable  — "  my 
doom  to  be  solitary."  He  had,  even  then,  boy  that  he 
was,  the  hesitating  courtesy  of  address  that  marked 
his  demeanour  through  life.  He  was  neither  shy  nor 
proud,  he  was  slow.  He  was  one  of  the  group  that, 
after  a  Sophomore  rebellion  had  unified  the  class, 
organized  the  Conventicle  Club  for  cheer  and  comrade 
ship,  and  he  was  a  member  of  the  Pythologian  Society 
which  held  weekly  debating  and  literary  exercises, 
followed  by  a  supper  at  a  total  expense  of  two  dollars  ; 
he  professed  to  remember  the  Malaga  from  the  Cam 
bridge  grocer's  as  the  best  wine  he  had  ever  drunk, 
though  instead  of  finding  in  it  a  solvent  with  his 
companions  he  "  grew  graver  with  every  glass."  He 
wrote  a  long  serious  poem  for  this  Society,  and  an  ode 
for  a  convivial  college  occasion.  He  had  also,  early 
in  the  course,  helped  to  establish  a  Book  Club,  which 
bought  Reviews  not  afforded  by  the  college  library  and 
novels,  of  which  Scott's  were  read  aloud.  His  class 
was  not  more  clairvoyant  of  the  future  than  were  the 
college  authorities ;  they  made  him  Class  Poet,  but 
only  after  seven  others  had  refused  the  post.  It  was 
to  this  happier,  later  period  of  college  life  that  he 
referred  when,  a  year  after,  he  wrote,  "  I  was  then 
delighted  with  my  recent  honors,  traversing  my 
chamber,  flushed  and  proud  of  a  poet's  fancies  and 
the  day  when  they  were  to  be  exhibited ;  pleased  with 
ambitious  prospects,  and  careless  because  ignorant 
of  the  future."  Except  that  other  "  peculiar  pursuit," 
to  which  he  more  solemnly  looked  forward,  poetry  was 


18  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

the  most  dearly  cherished  in  his  solitude.  It  was, 
after  all,  the  boyish  rhymester  that  had  most  lived  on 
in  him  through  the  four  years.  He  was  so  disap 
pointed  at  not  being  allowed  a  poetical  part  at  Com 
mencement  that,  it  is  said,  he  neglected  the  part  assigned 
to  him,  a  defence  of  Knox,  and  delivered  it  only  with 
much  prompting  and  little  to  his  credit.  So  ended 
college  for  him ;  schoolboy  self -apology  and  penance 
for  tutors'  tasks,  vagrancy  in  English  books,  and 
pleasant  country  strolls  in  study  hours  were  his  most 
lasting  memories  of  Harvard. 

The  only  live  colour  in  these  college  days  that  re 
mains  to  us  is  Emerson's  own  account  of  his  adoration 
of  Edward  Everett.  It  was  an  idolatry;  "the  Idol" 
was  the  name  by  which  Everett  was  known  in  the 
boys'  jargon.  Emerson  was  laughed  at  for  his  enthu 
siasm,  but  he  did  not  mind.  The  passage  incidentally 
discloses  the  state  of  the  Boston  atmosphere  in  which 
the  commonplace  of  those  early  years  had  its  unseen 
background  and  rounded  into  a  world;  the  "Athe 
nian"  style,  too,  contains  the  drop  of  time  and  cir 
cumstance,  the  weather-stain  of  contemporary  life. 
What  modern  pen  could  preserve  these  old  perspec 
tives  without  some  vein  of  irony?  Though  anti 
quated,  the  sketch  is  characteristic  of  a  culture,  and 
though  written  with  the  cold  criticism  of  maturity,  it 
has,  nevertheless,  gleams  and  flashes  that  take  us 
straight  to  the  boy's  heart :  — 

"Germany  had  created  criticism  in  vain  for  us  until 
1820,  when  Edward  Everett  returned  from  his  five  years  in 
Europe,  and  brought  to  Cambridge  his  rich  results,  which 
no  one  was  so  fitted  by  natural  grace  and  the  splendor  of 
his  rhetoric  to  introduce  and  recommend.  He  made  us  for 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED  AT  PRIME  19 

the  first  time  acquainted  with  Wolff's  theory  of  the  Ho 
meric  writings,  with  the  criticism  of  Heyne.  The  novelty 
of  the  learning  lost  nothing  in  the  skill  and  genius  of  his 
relation,  and  the  rudest  undergraduate  found  a  new  morn 
ing  opened  to  him  in  the  lecture-room  of  Harvard  Hall. 

"  There  was  an  influence  on  the  young  people  from  the 
genius  of  Everett  which  was  almost  comparable  to  that  of 
Pericles  in  Athens.  He  had  an  inspiration  which  did  not 
go  beyond  his  head,  but  which  made  him  the  master  of 
elegance.  If  any  of  my  readers  were  at  that  period  in 
Boston  or  Cambridge,  they  will  easily  remember  his  radiant 
beauty  of  person,  of  a  classic  style,  his  heavy  large  eye, 
marble  lids,  which  gave  the  impression  of  mass  which  the 
slightness  of  his  form  needed ;  sculptured  lips ;  a  voice  of 
such  rich  tones,  such  precise  and  perfect  utterance,  that, 
although  slightly  nasal,  it  was  the  most  mellow  and  beau 
tiful  and  correct  of  all  the  instruments  of  the  time.  The 
word  that  he  spoke,  in  the  manner  in  which  he  spoke  it, 
became  current  and  classical  in  New  England.  He  had  a 
great  talent  for  collecting  facts,  and  for  bringing  those  he 
had  to  bear  with  ingenious  felicity  on  the  topic  of  the  mo 
ment.  Let  him  rise  to  speak  on  what  occasion  soever,  a  fact 
had  always  just  transpired  which  composed,  with  some  other 
fact  well  known  to  the  audience,  the  most  pregnant  and 
happy  coincidence.  It  was  remarked  that  for  a  man  who 
threw  out  so  many  facts  he  was  seldom  convicted  of  a 
blunder.  He  had  a  good  deal  of  special  learning,  and  all  his 
learning  was  available  for  purposes  of  the  hour.  It  was  all 
new  learning,  that  wonderfully  took  and  stimulated  the 
young  men.  It  was  so  coldly  and  weightily  communicated 
from  so  commanding  a  platform,  as  if  in  the  consciousness 
and  consideration  of  all  history  and  all  learning,  —  adorned 
with  so  many  simple  and  austere  beauties  of  expression,  and 
enriched  with  so  many  excellent  digressions  and  significant 
quotations,  that,  though  nothing  could  be  conceived  before 
hand  less  attractive  or  indeed  less  fit  for  green  boys  from 
Connecticut,  New  Hampshire,  and  Massachusetts,  with  their 
unripe  Latin  and  Greek  reading,  than  exegetical  discourses 
in  the  style  of  Voss  and  Wolff  and  Kuhnken,  on  the  Orphic 


20  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  Ante-Homeric  remains,  —  yet  this  learning  instantly 
took  the  highest  place  to  our  imagination  in  our  unoccupied 
American  Parnassus.  All  his  auditors  felt  the  extreme 
beauty  and  dignity  of  the  manner,  and  even  the  coarsest 
were  contented  to  go  punctually  to  listen,  for  the  manner, 
when  they  had  found  out  that  the  subject-matter  was  not 
for  them.  In  the  lecture-room,  he  abstained  from  all  orna 
ment,  and  pleased  himself  with  the  play  of  detailing  erudi 
tion  in  a  style  of  perfect  simplicity.  In  the  pulpit  (for  he 
was  then  a  clergyman)  he  made  amends  to  himself  and  his 
auditor  for  the  self-denial  of  the  professor's  chair,  and,  with 
an  infantine  simplicity  still,  of  manner,  he  gave  the  reins  to 
his  florid,  quaint,  and  affluent  fancy. 

"  Then  was  exhibited  all  the  richness  of  a  rhetoric  which 
we  have  never  seen  rivalled  in  this  country.  Wonderful 
how  memorable  were  words  made  which  were  only  pleas 
ing  pictures,  and  covered  no  new  or  valid  thoughts.  He 
abounded  in  sentences,  in  wit,  in  satire,  in  splendid  allusion, 
in  quotation  impossible  to  forget,  in  daring  imagery,  in 
parable  and  even  in  a  sort  of  defying  experiment  of  his 
own  wit  and  skill  in  giving  an  oracular  weight  to  Hebrew 
or  Rabbinical  words  —  feats  which  no  man  could  better 
accomplish,  such  was  his  self-command  and  the  security  of 
his  manner.  All  his  speech  was  music,  and  with  such 
variety  and  invention  that  the  ear  was  never  tired.  Espe 
cially  beautiful  were  his  poetic  quotations.  He  delighted  in 
quoting  Milton,  and  with  such  sweet  modulation  that  he 
seemed  to  give  as  much  beauty  as  he  borrowed ;  and  what 
ever  he  has  quoted  will  be  remembered  by  any  who 
heard  him,  with  inseparable  association  with  his  voice  and 
genius.  He  had  nothing  in  common  with  vulgarity  and 
infirmity,  but,  speaking,  walking,  sitting,  was  as  much  aloof 
and  uncommon  as  a  star.  The  smallest  anecdote  of  his  be 
havior  or  conversation  was  eagerly  caught  and  repeated, 
and  every  young  scholar  could  recite  brilliant  sentences 
from  his  sermons,  with  mimicry,  good  or  bad,  of  his  voice. 
This  influence  went  much  farther,  for  he  who  was  heard 
with  such  throbbing  hearts  and  sparkling  eyes  in  the  lighted 
and  crowded  churches,  did  not  let  go  his  hearers  when  the 
church  was  dismissed,  but  the  bright  image  of  that  eloquent 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT  PRIME  21 

form  followed  the  boy  home  to  his  bed-chamber;  and  not  a 
sentence  was  written  in  academic  exercises,  not  a  declama 
tion  attempted  in  the  college-chapel,  but  showed  the  omni 
presence  of  his  genius  to  youthful  heads.  This  made  every 
youth  his  defender,  and  boys  filled  their  mouths  with  argu 
ments  to  prove  that  the  orator  had  a  heart." 

Emerson  had  no  personal  intercourse  with,  this 
Boston  world,  just  as  he  had  not  come  near  to  his 
professors  at  college.  He  was  only  one  of  the  com 
munity  who  sat  under  the  lights  of  the  pulpit,  an 
ambitious  schoolboy  of  eighteen,  with  humble  and 
unobserved  business  of  his  own.  He  assisted  William 
in  his  school  at  his  mother's  house.  He  had  acquired 
some  slight  experience  in  teaching  at  his  clerical 
uncle's  school  in  vacations,  where  his  pupils  were  raw 
boys  of  his  own  age ;  and  he  cordially  hated  it.  He 
was  hardly  better  pleased  with  the  task  of  instructing 
the  fashionable  young  ladies,  also  of  not  uneven  age 
with  his  own,  who  came  to  his  brother  to  finish  their 
education.  He  was  timid  about  his  French ;  he  de 
tested  mathematics;  and  he  was  vexed  by  youthful 
defects.  He  was  easily  embarrassed,  blushed,  and  had 
"  no  power  of  face,"  such  as  he  especially  admired  in 
Edward;  his  cheeks,  he  long  complained,  were  tell 
tales  against  his  interests  and  dignity.  The  young 
ladies  found  means  of  confusion,  and  he  had  never 
lived  with  girls ;  when  they  became  impossible,  he 
would  send  them  to  his  mother's  room  to  study. 
These  were  trifles.  The  young  schoolmaster,  in  the 
serious  part  of  his  task,  did  by  teaching  as  he  had 
done  by  his  college  work :  he  tried  to  do  his  duty, 
but  it  was  against  the  grain.  "Better  tug  at  the 
oar,"  he  writes  toward  the  close  of  the  year,  "  dig  the 


22  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

mine,  or  saw  wood  ;  better  sow  hemp  or  hang  with  it 
than  sow  the  seeds  of  instruction."  But  he  was  soon 
broken  to  the  harness,  and  showed  sufficient  capacity 
to  be  left  in  charge  of  the  school  while  William  went 
for  an  absence  of  two  years  to  Gottingen  to  study  for 
the  ministry. 

During  this  period,  in  1823,  the  family  removed  to 
Canterbury  Lane,  a  country  suburb,  and  for  some  years 
afterward  their  habits  were  migratory,  and  one  or 
more  of  the  boys  were  always  away  from  home. 
Emerson,  now  the  responsible  head,  indulged  some 
hope  of  becoming  acquainted  with  Nature  and  reaping 
the  fruits  of  her  solitude ;  but  he  was  disappointed  — 
he  was  a  town-boy  with  slow  pulses  and  had  not  then 
the  secret  of  the  woods  and  fields ;  perhaps  one  rea 
son  was  that  he  always  took  a  book  with  him.  He 
was  happy  in  the  fact  that  he  earned  money  honestly, 
and  there  was  enough  of  it,  but  otherwise  he  was  sub 
ject  to  youthful  depression ;  he  had  besides  strained 
his  constitution,  of  which  what  he  calls  his  apathy 
was  a  sign.  He  was  at  all  times  a  most  discouraging 
critic  of  himself.  He  had  been  ambitious,  notwith 
standing  his  lack  of  precocity ;  and  in  the  chill  that 
followed  the  enthusiasms  of  boyhood  and  before  the 
approaching  prospect  of  mediocrity  he  discomfortably 
wrote  that  not  any  "  application  of  which  I  am  capa 
ble,  any  efforts,  any  sacrifices,  could  at  this  moment 
restore  any  reasonableness  to  the  familiar  expectations 
of  my  earlier  youth."  He  did  not  cease  from  effort, 
however,  or  waver  in  his  own  strict  line.  He  was 
always  persistent  in  self-will.  He  was  still  the  des 
ultory  reader  of  literature  and  history  that  he  had 
ever  been ;  and  he  had  written  from  the  beginning  of 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT   PRIME  23 

his  teaching,  every  night  in  his  chamber,  his  first 
thoughts  on  morals  and  genius.  Montaigne,  in  Cot 
ton's  translation,  was  his  great  discovery  at  Canterbury 
Lane.  "  I  remember  the  delight  and  wonder  in  which 
I  lived  with  it.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  had  myself 
written  the  book,  in  some  former  life,  so  sincerely  it 
spoke  to  my  thought  and  experience."  The  book 
was  the  first  that  addressed  him  as  an  equal  soul ; 
and  there  were  never  many  that  were  so  fortunate. 

A  moment  of  stress  is  discernible,  just  before  he 
reached  his  majority,  in  the  natural  deepening  of  his 
self-examination  and  solemnizing  of  his  moral  pur 
pose  ;  but  it  is  more  significantly  marked  by  that  con 
scious  retirement  upon  himself  as  his  true  base,  which 
is  expressed  in  the  first  line  of  verse  that  has  his 
voice  in  it  and  has  always  been  remembered  in  spite 
of  the  very  proper  disfavour  with  which  he  regarded 
the  poem  as  a  whole,  — 

"  Good-by,  proud  world  !    I'm  going  home."  \ 

His  future  rings  in  it.  At  the  moment,  however,  it 
seemed  a  digression,  for  his  habitual  thoughts  were 
centred  on  beginning  to  prepare  for  that  profession 
to  which  his  birth  and  breeding  and  all  the  common 
reason  and  utility  of  life,  as  well  as  his  own  choice, 
assigned  him.  "  In  a  month,"  he  writes,  "  I  shall  be 
legally  a  man ;  and  I  deliberately  dedicate  my  time, 
my  talents,  and  my  hopes  to  the  church."  Other  sen 
tences  in  this  boyish  autobiographic  record  of  the 
moment  are  significant.  "  I  cannot  dissemble  that  my 
abilities  are  below  my  ambition.  ...  I  have,  or  had, 
a  strong  imagination,  and  consequently  a  keen  relish 
for  the  beauties  of  poetry.  My  reasoning  faculty  is 


24  EALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

proportionally  weak ;  nor  can  I  ever  hope  to  write  a 
Butler's  Analogy  or  an  Essay  of  Hume.  Nor  is  it 
strange  that  with  this  confession  I  should  choose 
theology;  for  the  highest  species  of  reasoning  upon 
divine  subjects  is  rather  the  fruit  of  a  sort  of  moral 
imagination  than  of  the  reasoning  machines,  such  as 
Locke  and  Clarke  and  David  Hume.  ...  I  inherit 
from  my  sire  a  formality  of  manners  and  speech,  but 
I  derive  from  him  or  his  patriotic  parent  a  passionate 
love  for  the  strains  of  eloquence.  I  burn  after  the 
aliquid  immensum  infinitumque  which  Cicero  desired. 
What  we  ardently  love,  we  learn  to  imitate.  But 
the  most  prodigious  genius,  a  seraph's  eloquence,  will 
shamefully  defeat  its  own  end  if  it  has  not  first  won 
the  heart  of  the  defender  to  the  cause  he  defends." 
All  his  points  of  view,  in  the  prospect  of  the  future, 
are  here  contained ;  they  summarize  and  carry  for 
ward  past  tendencies,  —  ambition,  self-examination, 
the  contempt  of  reasoning,  the  thought  of  eloquence, 
the  preoccupation  with  morals,  intellectual  integrity. 
Throughout  early  years  and  into  manhood  Emerson 
was  in  exclusively  clerical  surroundings.  The  tradi 
tions  of  the  house,  his  circle  of  relatives,  all  the  conver 
sation  of  his  life,  were  in  this  atmosphere.  There  was 
no  outlet  from  it  except  into  books  which  he  read  by 
himself.  He  was  without  intellectual  companionship  ; 
he  had  in  his  forming  years  neither  comrade  nor 
leader.  He  kept  up  a  commonplace  correspondence 
with  some  of  his  classmates ;  but  his  only  true  sympa 
thizer  was  his  Aunt  Mary,  to  whom  he  confided  his  life, 
even  sending  her  his  private  journal  to  read.  His 
mental  growth  thus  isolated  contained  no  elements  of 
disturbance.  He  did  not  conceive  religion  intellectu- 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED  AT  PRIME  25 

ally,  and  hence  was  little  vulnerable  on  that  side ; 
religion  in  his  habit  of  thought  was  rather  a  moral 
discipline  than  an  argument  of  the  mind ;  the  profes 
sion  was,  in  his  notion  of  its  practice,  a  mode  of 
hortatory  moral  discourse,  and  his  ideal  of  it  was  "  to 
put  on  eloquence  as  a  robe."  Doubt,  however,  in  the 
form  in  which  it  was  to  end  the  clerical  hopes  of  this 
household,  had  already  entered  the  family,  and  this 
may  have  been  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  down  his 
conviction  of  the  need  to  scrutinize  the  cause  he  was 
to  defend.  William  was  consulting  Goethe  at  Weimar 
as  to  his  duty  in  entering  the  ministry,  and  notwith 
standing  the  conventional  advice  he  received  to  ac 
commodate  himself  to  the  world  and  not  disappoint 
the  hopes  of  his  family,  he  was  coming  to  an  adverse 
decision. 

In  Emerson  himself,  who  did  not  have  William's 
contact  with  a  larger  world  of  thought  and  life,  there 
is  no  early  sign  of  reluctance  to  follow  the  career  to 
which  his  environment  and  traditions  pledged  him. 
There  was  no  breaking  up  of  the  old  system ;  no 
storm  and  stress ;  he  was  born  free  from  all  that ;  it 
was  neither  in  his  situation  nor  his  nature  to  be  so 
stirred ;  and  when  he  went  on  to  the  Divinity  School 
at  Cambridge,  though  not  without  thought  about  the 
matter,  suggested  apparently  by  Hume,  he  was  resolved 
if  not  assured  in  his  course.  He  closed  the  school  Feb 
ruary  8,  1825.  Summing  up  the  results  of  the  four 
working  years,  he  says :  "  I  have  written  two  or  three 
hundred  pages  that  will  be  of  use  to  me.  I  have 
earned  two  or  three  thousand  dollars,  which  have 
paid  my  debts  and  obligated  my  neighbors  ;  so  that 
I  thank  Heaven  I  can  say  none  of  my  house  is  the 


26  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

worse  for  me."  He  had  won  his  first  and  fundamen 
tal  success  in  the  homely  task  of  earning  his  bread 
and  paying  his  way.  He  had  also  continued  to  write 
verse  and  to  read  history  and  literature,  in  which 
together  with  his  meditation  on  morals  his  real  life 
had  been ;  school-keeping  was  a  makeshift  and  an 
interruption.  The  family  circumstances  were  more 
comfortable  than  they  had  ever  been,  and  the  pros 
pect  brighter.  Edward,  after  a  brilliant  career  at 
Harvard,  had  opened  a  school  at  Roxbury,  and 
Charles,  the  youngest,  whom  Dr.  Holmes  describes  as 
"the  most  angelic  adolescent  my  eyes  ever  beheld," 
was  taking  his  turn  at  college.  His  mother  returned 
to  Boston  for  a  brief  period. 

Emerson  immediately  went  to  Cambridge,  where 
he  took  a  room  at  14  Divinity  Hall,  being  permitted 
to  join  the  studies  of  the  middle  class  in  consideration 
of  his  private  reading  the  past  year  ;  but  the  prospect 
soon  clouded.  The  weakness  of  constitution  that  was 
disclosed  in  all  the  brothers  in  turn  showed  itself 
unmistakably  in  his  general  condition.  Ill  health 
began  to  afflict  him.  His  eyes  failed  and  after  a 
month's  residence  he  gave  up  and  sought  recuperation 
in  working  on  his  uncle  Ladd's  farm  at  Newton.  By 
summer  he  was  well  enough  to  drag  the  chain  of 
school-keeping  again,  taking  a  few  pupils  at  Cam 
bridge,  and  in  the  fall  a  public  school  at  Chelmsford, 
where  his  brother  Bulkeley  was  cared  for ;  and  the 
new  year,  1826,  coming  round,  and  Edward  in  his  turn 
and  for  the  second  time  falling  ill  from  overwork  at 
his  law  studies  in  addition  to  other  employments,  and 
being  sent  off  to  the  Mediterranean,  he  took  his  school 
at  Koxbury.  This  winter  he  suffered  much  from  rheu- 


i.]  THE    VOICE    OBEYED   AT   PRIME  27 

matism,  and  especially  a  lame  hip.  In  April  his 
mother  moved  to  Cambridge,  and  he  joined  her,  tak 
ing  pupils  for  the  last  time  that  summer.  At  Chelrns- 
ford  William  had  visited  him  on  returning  from 
abroad  and  had  told  him  his  decision  to  relinquish  the 
ministry,  and  pursue  the  law.  "  I  was  very  sad," 
Emerson  said,  "  for  I  knew  how  much  it  would  grieve 
my  mother;  and  it  did."  He  was  himself  not  then 
affected  by  the  example.  He  had  kept  an  inter 
mittent  connection  with  the  Divinity  School,  at  such 
times  as  he  was  in  Cambridge,  and  on  October  10, 
1826,  was  approbated  to  preach  by  the  Middlesex 
Association  of  Ministers,  without  examination,  for  the 
reason  that  the  state  of  his  eyes  had  not  permitted 
him  to  take  notes  of  such  lectures  as  he  had  attended. 
He  afterward  said  had  they  examined  him  they  would 
not  have  accepted  him,  a  remark  which  indicates  that 
he  was  aware  later,  if  not  then,  that  there  had  been 
much  heterodoxy  in  his  belief  at  an  early  time.  He 
preached  his  first  sermon,  October  15,  at  Waltham. 

Emerson  was  now,  at  twenty-three,  externally  a  young 
candidate,  with  weak  eyes  and  rheumatism  and  a  low 
physical  tone.  He  had  struggled  against  his  disabili 
ties,  but  his  health  was  steadily  worse.  A  stricture 
developed  in  his  right  chest,  giving  him  much  pain 
after  the  effort  of  preaching.  It  was  thought  advis 
able  to  send  him  to  the  South  for  the  winter ;  and,  his 
unfailing  uncle,  Samuel  Ripley,  furnishing  the  means,  a 
few  weeks  after  Edward's  return  from  the  Mediterra 
nean  he  sailed,  Xovember  25,  in  the  ship  Clematis  from 
Boston  to  Charleston,  and  soon  went  on  to  St.  Augustine 
in  Florida.  There  he  spent  the  winter  months,  thor 
oughly  bored.  "  I  stroll  on  the  sea-beach  and  drive 


28  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

a  green  orange  over  the  sand  with  a  stick,"  he  wrote 
home  disconsolately.  The  single  bright  spot  in  this 
southern  journey  was  his  acquaintance  with  Achille 
Murat,  who  took  him  for  a  visit  to  his  plantation  at 
Tallahassee  and  accompanied  him  by  sea  from  St. 
Augustine  to  Charleston  a  rough  nine  days'  passage. 
He  arrived  there  in  April  and  slowly  came  north,  hav 
ing  preached  at  St.  Augustine,  Charleston,  Washington, 
Philadelphia,  and  New  York,  and  reached  home  in 
June,  going  to  the  Old  Manse,  where  his  mother  had 
spent  the  year  with  Dr.  Bipley.  He  was  better,  but  he 
had  not  been  cured  of  the  trouble  in  his  chest. 

He  took  a  room  at  the  Divinity  School  in  Cambridge 
and  resided  there  through  the  year  and  afterward 
very  happily,  it  would  appear,  and  idly,  according  to 
his  own  impression.  He  applied  the  best  medicine  to 
his  case,  indulging  his  desultory  instincts,  seeking  out 
pleasant  companions,  laughers,  he  says,  by  preference, 
and  slipping  off  into  the  woods,  with  old  clothes  and 
old  hat,  picking  berries  and  anticipating  the  sauntering 
country  habits  of  later  years,  a  "  lounging,  capricious, 
unfettered  mode  of  life."  Edward  was  in  Daniel 
Webster's  office  in  Boston,  incessantly  alive  and  striv 
ing,  of  a  more  burning  spirit,  the  pride  and  hope  of 
many  friends,  and  most  of  Emerson,  who  never  mentions 
him  without  some  adoring  word  of  brotherly  delight ; 
but  there  were  already  warnings  to  which  the  impetu 
ous,  ambitious,  overflowing  boy  would  not  listen. 
Charles,  too,  then  in  his  last  year  at  Harvard,  where 
like  Edward  he  had  been  a  first  scholar,  was  near  at 
hand  and  came  to  call  occasionally  —  "  the  same  honey- 
catcher  of  pleasure,  favor,  and  honor  that  he  hath  been, 
and  without  paying  for  it,  like  Edward,  with  life  and 


i.]  THE  VOICE   OBEYED   AT   PRIME  29 

limb.  He  reads  Plato  and  Aristophanes  in  Greek,  and 
writes,  as  the  President  said  of  the  brood,  like  hoary 
hairs.  "  Emerson  wrote  new  sermons,  but  none  too 
many,  having  his  store  of  old  writings ;  and  he  often 
preached,  sometimes  at  his  father's  church  in  Boston, 
but  usually  as  a  substitute  in  the  neighbouring  towns. 
He  was  still  unwilling  to  settle,  owing  to  his  health. 

In  June,  1828,  the  first  great  grief  fell  upon  the 
family.  Edward  went  suddenly  insane :  "  there  he 
lay,  Edward,  the  admired,  learned,  eloquent,  striving 
boy,  a  maniac."  He  recovered  his  reason,  but  his 
future  was  at  an  end.  He  required  a  southern  climate, 
and  took  a  clerkship  at  Porto  Rico,  where  he  continued 
to  live  an  invalid  life.  Emerson,  though  he  had  long 
recognized  the  family  weakness  of  constitution,  felt 
no  foreboding  for  himself  from  this  incident.  He  had 
always  looked  on  himself  as  an  opposite  to  Edward; 
his  own  sluggishness,  embarrassment,  passivity,  were 
protective,  he  justly  thought, — kindly  integuments 
of  nature  round  his  spark  of  life ;  and  he  favoured  his 
rather  low  vitality  by  stopping  in  time,  by  waiting,  by 
wasting  the  days,  never  forcing  his  mind,  never  straining. 
He  read  if  his  eyes  allowed,  he  walked  if  his  hip  per 
mitted,  he  preached  if  his  lungs  held  out;  he  went  slow. 
He  now,  in  December,  1828,  became  engaged  to  Ellen 
Louisa  Tucker,  a  daughter  of  a  Boston  merchant,  whom 
he  had  met  while  preaching  at  Concord,  New  Hamp 
shire  ;  she  was  a  beautiful  young  lady  of  seventeen,  a 
consumptive.  It  was  perhaps  under  the  incitement 
of  life  caused  by  this  new  change  that,  a  good  oppor 
tunity  arising,  he  decided  to  accept  a  settlement.  He 
was  ordained  colleague  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  at  the 
Old  North  Church  in  Boston,  March  11, 1829  ;  and  a  few 


30  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

weeks  later,  on  the  departure  of  Dr.  Ware  to  Europe  pre 
paratory  to  assuming  a  Divinity  School  chair  at  Har 
vard,  he  came  into  sole  charge  of  the  parish.  He  was 
married  September  30,  of  the  same  year ;  he  lived  in 
Chardon  Street,  and  gathered  his  mother  and  his  brother 
Charles,  who  was  studying  law,  into  his  household. 

It  is  plain  that  Emerson  was  scholastically  ill  pre 
pared  for  his  profession.  His  studies,  pursued  mainly 
in  private,  and  broken  in  upon  by  ill  health  and  school 
tasks,  must  have  been  of  the  most  superficial  kind, 
and  intellectually  flimsy.  He  was  never  grounded  in 
theology  or  metaphysics.  His  principal  intellectual 
acquisition  was  literary,  lying  in  the  region  of  poetry 
and  the  more  ponderous  English  prose  ;  his  own  think 
ing  was  mainly  ethical ;  and  in  his  mind  he  responded 
most  to  the  stimulus  of  the  ideas  of  Coleridge  and 
the  images  of  Swedeuborg.  A  religious  decadence, 
such  as  occurs  periodically  in  history,  had  taken  place 
in  New  England;  he  became  a  writer  of  this  deca 
dence  and  its  chief  example ;  that  is  his  true  position. 
The  decadence  was  already  fully  accomplished  in  the 
bones  of  his  spirit  before  he  began  to  think ;  the  theo 
logical  blood  had  run  out  in  him  ;  the  historical  ideas 
of  Christianity  had  faded  from  his  mind;  his  inner 
biography,  under  the  lethargy  of  his  invalidism  and  the 
unexacting  nature  of  his  ministerial  employment  as  a 
substitute,  was  the  story  of  a  gradual  detachment 
from  traditional  religion  so  natural  that  it  may  be 
described  as  a  painless  death.  He  seems  not  aware 
himself  how  honeycombed  was  his  belief;  if  it  re 
tained  an  apparent  outline  of  convention  and  conform 
ity,  it  was  nevertheless  such  a  shell  as  would  at  one 
touch  fall  into  dust. 


i.J  THE   VOICE    OBEYED   AT   PRIME  31 

His  youthful  journals  and  family  letters  from  the 
time  he  began  to  prepare  for  the  ministry  show  the 
drift  of  his  mind,  and  the  more  clearly  because  they  dis 
close  no  friction,  no  disturbance,  no  unrest.  The  weak 
ness  of  his  intellectual  interest  was  earliest  and  most 
continually  in  evidence.  At  twenty  he  had  written  of 
his  blindness  to  "  the  truth  of  a  theology"  that  "  sounds 
like  nonsense  in  the  ear  of  the  understanding,"  the  fac 
ulty  which  is  "  made  in  us  arbiter  of  things  seen,  the 
prophet  of  things  unseen"  ;  and  four  years  later  at  St. 
Augustine  he  hoped  for  the  hour  when  "  disputed  truths 
in  theology"  would  cease  to  absorb  the  elucidative 
genius  of  ministers  while  these  should  at  last  concern 
themselves  with  "  passages  in  the  history  of  the  soul." 
He  spoke  of  God  as  "  the  unseen  idea."  He  began  to 
look  on  Christianity,  viewed  in  time,  as  "  a  piece  of 
human  history."  He  got  "  bare  life  "  for  a  belief  in  im 
mortality  without  Christianity.  There  was  in  all  these 
years  a  general  elimination  going  on  in  his  mind,  just 
as  in  the  quoted  instances  he  reduces  the  importance 
of  historical  elements,  depreciates  theology,  and  puts 
the  concept  of  God  farther  off,  and  all  without  a  trace  of 
feeling,  very  tranquilly,  at  most  with  a  touch  of  irony 
in  his  question.  There  was  also  a  concentration  deepen 
ing  down  within  him,  especially  in  the  moral  part ;  his 
mind  was  rounding  in  to  one  centre,  to  the  immediacy 
of  religion,  to  the  individual  man  and  the  present 
moment,  to  intuitional  life.  "  Every  man  is  a  new 
creation ;  "  "  a  portion  of  truth  lives  in  every  moment 
to  every  man  ;  "  "  a  revelation  proceeding  each  moment 
from  the  divinity  to  the  mind  of  the  observer: "  such  are 
typical  sentences  and  carry  with  them  by  implication 
some  derogation  of  the  distant,  the  past,  the  things  of 


32  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

another.  "  I  am  curious  to  know  what  the  Scriptures 
do  in  very  deed  say  about  that  exalted  person  who  died 
on  Calvary ;  but  I  do  think  it,  at  this  distance  of  time 
and  in  the  confusion  of  language,  to  be  a  work  of 
weighing  of  phrases  and  hunting  in  dictionaries." 
The  stream  of  tendency  in  all  this  is  plain ;  it  is  away 
from  doctrinal  theology,  from  a  personal  God,  from  an 
authoritative  church,  from  a  historic  Christ,  from  an  ex 
clusive  Scripture ;  it  is  toward  the  evangel  of  the  self- 
lighted  soul.  The  centre  so  found  was,  for  Emerson, 
primarily  a  moral  one,  his  thought  lying  principally 
in  that  region  at  all  times ;  but  from  the  beginning  he 
shows  traces  of  a  different  perception,  of  the  notion 
of  illumination,  of  the  presence  of  the  divine  in  the 
individual's  life  at  exalted  moments. 

Such  a  development,  though  still  in  its  inchoate 
stages,  harmonized  with  Emerson's  temperament. 
He  was  by  nature  an  extreme  individualist.  In  our 
political  phrase  he  carried  his  sovereignty  under  his 
own  hat.  He  took  no  counsel  of  any  man,  or  of  any 
mind.  Montaigne,  his  only  literary  enthusiasm,  ap 
pealed  to  him  as  his  own  voice  speaking  out  of  another 
century.  He  had  been  bred  to  practical  indepen 
dence  ;  and  paying  one's  way  and  thinking  one's  way 
are  good  neighbours.  He  had  been  always  intellectu 
ally  alone ;  his  mind  had  never  ranged  very  far,  had 
never  been  developed  by  extension,  but  had  worked 
intensively  with  a  certain  narrowness  of  view  and  few 
ness  of  ideas.  It  is  fair  to  acknowledge  also  that  his 
physical  limitations  predisposed  him  to  the  course  he 
took.  He  could  never  be  a  scholar.  If  the  sanction 
of  Christianity  was  a  matter  of  theological  learning, 
historical  criticism,  and  the  abilities  of  a  doctor  of  the 


i.l  THE   VOICE    OBEYED   AT  PRIME  33 

church,  it  was  not  for  him  at  first  hand,  and  he  could 
take  nothing  at  second  hand.  It  is  not  that  he  would 
have  come  to  any  different  conclusion,  had  he  been 
learned ;  but  in  the  actual  working  out  of  the  case  his 
scant  preparation,  his  weak  eyesight,  and  ill  health 
made  it  easy  for  him  to  slight  the  importance  of  that 
which  belonged  to  the  past  and  reposed  on  history  and 
learning.  He  was,  indeed,  a  liberal  by  birth,  and  had 
no  need  to  kill  the  twice-slain  already ;  but  his  mind 
had  worked  only  in  the  religious  field,  and  with  much 
restriction  even  there.  It  was  against  the  narrowness 
of  religion,  as  he  knew  it,  that  he  revolted  ;  the  old 
formulas,  emptied  of  essential  meaning  as  he  received 
them,  could  not  hold  the  expansion  of  his  own  spirit 
ual  life,  and  he  had,  in  fact,  already  substituted  others 
for  them  derived  from  Coleridge.  It  is  surprising 
that  he  did  not  better  appreciate  the  state  of  his  faith 
with  regard  to  that  of  his  flock.  The  rifts  under  his  feet 
were  cracking  wide  between  them  and  him,  but  he 
seems  not  to  have  known  it ;  and  when  he  gave  his 
first  sermon,  characteristically  telling  his  parishioners 
that  Christianity  was  less  the  expounding  of  texts 
than  the  revelation  of  a  present  Deity,  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  he  did  not  contemplate  long 
service  in  the  pulpit. 

If  Emerson  felt  any  misgivings  in  his  position, 
they  arose  from  the  sense  of  prosperity  after  clouded 
days.  Edward  was  relieved  from  the  worst  of  afflic 
tions  ;  William  was  established  in  the  law  at  New 
York  ;  he  was  himself  a  Boston  minister,  as  his  father 
had  been  before  him,  and  able  to  give  a  home  to  those 
dearest  to  him ;  he  was  blessed  in  a  happy  marriage 
for  his  private  lot.  He  doubted  the  continuance  of  such 


34  RALPH   WALDO    EMERSON  [CHAP. 

happiness.  He  followed  in  his  father's  footsteps  as  a 
public  character  of  the  city,  was  on  the  school-board, 
chaplain  of  the  State  Senate,  and  gave  the  "charity 
sermon"  at  the  Old  South.  He  assisted  Father 
Taylor  in  founding  the  Sailors'  Mission,  and  earned  the 
lifelong  respect  of  that  strong  and  vehement  evange 
list.  He  opened  his  church  to  the  antislavery  orators 
who  twice  preached  emancipation  there.  In  parochial 
work  he  was  not  fitted  to  excel.  His  character  as  a 
visitor  is  best  remembered  by  the  anecdote  of  the  old 
veteran  on  his  death-bed,  who,  in  view  of  Emerson's 
hesitations,  flared  out,  —  "  Young  man,  if  you  don't 
know  your  business,  you  had  better  go  home ; "  and  by 
the  sexton's  remark, —  "  He  does  not  make  his  best 
impression  at  a  funeral."  In  his  own  church  he  held 
weekly  expositions  of  the  Scriptures,  giving  careful 
attention  to  such  exegesis.  In  the  pulpit  he  preached 
on  Sundays  and  there  won  his  first  admirers.  His 
manner  was  solemn  and  simple,  with  much  earnestness ; 
his  clear  elocution  made  the  charm  of  his  delivery  ; 
his  ministerial  behaviour  in  all  the  offices  of  the  desk 
was  refined,  select,  high-bred.  He  was  a  master  of 
pulpit  decorum.  His  youth  was  still  an  element  in  the 
personal  attraction  of  his  presence  and  his  message, 
and  it  was  especially  the  young  who  heard  him  gladly. 
Two  only  of  his  sermons  have  been  printed ;  the  re 
mainder,  one  hundred  and  seventy-one,  are  in  manu 
script,  and  the  bulk  of  them  must  belong  to  this  period. 
They  are  described  by  his  literary  executor,  Mr.  Cabot, 
as  both  ethical  and  doctrinal  and  differing  less  from  con 
ventional  modes  of  the  day  than  would  be  expected,  the 
moral  ideas  being  "  presented  in  Scriptural  language, 
as  if  they  belonged  to  the  body  of  accepted  doctrine," 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT  PRIME  35 

and  sometimes  possibly  supported  "  by  arguments  that 
had  more  weight  with  his  hearers  than  with  him 
self."  The  diction  is  occasionally  marked  by  an  un- 
clerical  phrase,  but  this  is  not  more  noticeable  than  the 
homely  word  characteristic  of  his  literary  style.  "  In 
general,"  says  Mr.  Cabot,  "  all  is  within  the  conven 
tions  of  the  Unitarian  pulpit."  He  was  well  received 
by  his  people ;  he  got  near  to  younger  hearts,  at  least, 
wrho  found  some  novelty  in  him,  a  spiritual  quality ; 
but  his  thought  was  still  put  forth  in  the  dress  of 
Christian  truth. 

The  crisis  which  brought  an  end  to  this  superficially 
admirable  condition  after  three  years,  and  before 
Emerson  was  thirty,  proceeded  wholly  from  himself ; 
it  was  of  his  own  making  ;  he  was  the  only  person 
truly  interested.  His  constitutional  incapacity  to 
adapt  himself  to  others  in  personal  relations  —  the 
embarrassment,  coldness,  and  reluctances  of  which  he 
always  complained  —  belonged  also  to  his  mental  re 
lations  ;  he  could  not  adapt  himself  to  the  thoughts 
of  others.  He  began  to  question  his  own  integrity  in 
conforming  to  the  will  of  the  church  in  external  prac 
tices.  The  most  intractable  thought  is  that  which 
takes  to  itself  form  in  a  rite,  and  so  becomes  organic 
in  the  custom  and  habit  of  a  people,  a  part  of  the 
order  of  things.  The  observances  of  the  church  are 
such  an  inveterate  form  of  truth.  It  was  the  office  of 
Emerson  as  a  minister  to  perform  one  high  ecclesias 
tical  act  in  which  such  truth  was  so  embedded  through 
all  the  Christian  centuries, — the  rite  of  the  communion. 
It  was  the  last  tie  that  held  him  to  historical  Christian 
ity,  but  it  was  the  holiest  bond  of  Christendom.  He 
desired  to  sever  it.  In  June,  1832,  he  proposed  that 


36  RALPH   WALDO    EMERSON  [CHAP. 

the  use  of  the  elements  be  discontinued  and  the  occa 
sion  should  be  held  as  a  mere  commemoration  of 
the  founder.  The  church  declined  to  accede.  It  was 
characteristic  of  his  youth  of.  mind,  in  which  there  was 
at  all  times  much  na'iveness,  that  he  thought  this  a 
proper  and  natural  proposal  and  that  he  believed  that 
it  might  be  accepted  ;  he  found  nothing  revolutionary 
in  it,  but  only  a  simple  and  sincere  admission  that 
religion  was  of  the  spirit  and  in  a  pure  state  excluded 
forms  ;  such  a  religion  he  conceived  Christ  had  meant 
to  initiate.  The  example  of  William,  who  wrote  a 
letter  to  Dr.  Klpley  two  years  before  this  time,  setting 
forth  the  objections  to  the  communion  service,  may  have 
weighed  with  him ;  he  had  come  up  to  the  particular 
question  more  slowly  as  was  his  wont,  but  he  had 
answered  it  in  the  same  way.  His  own  words  closing 
the  argument,  in  a  sermon  preached  September  9, 
1832,  deserve  to  be  quoted  :  "  Having  said  this,  I  have 
said  all.  I  have  no  hostility  to  this  institution ;  I  am 
only  stating  my  want  of  sympathy  with  it.  Neither 
should  I  ever  have  obtruded  this  opinion  upon  other 
people  had  I  not  been  called  by  my  office  to  admin 
ister  it.  That  is  the  end  of  my  opposition,  that  I  am 
not  interested  in  it.  I  am  content  that  it  stand  to  the 
end  of  the  world  if  it  please  men  and  please  Heaven, 
and  I  shall  rejoice  in  all  the  good  it  produces."  Quiet 
as  the  words  are,  they  contain  an  aggressive  personality 
as  the  velvet  contains  steel ;  and  it  is  the  first  time 
that  he  showed  it.  He  had  hardened  and  stiffened 
under  the  pressure  of  a  duty,  and  he  now  exhibited 
his  quality,  that  radical  and  fearless  will  to  assert 
himself,  which  determined  his  life.  Emerson  had 
seriously  considered  what  he  should  do,  and  had 


i.]  THE    VOICE    OBEYED    AT   PRIME  37 

come  to  the  only  conclusion  possible  for  him.  It  was 
a  necessity  of  his  character.  He  could  not  accommo 
date  himself  to  others.  After  preaching  his  sermon, 
he  resigned  on  the  same  day.  Outward  honesty  was 
a  necessary  supplement  to  his  inner  integrity.  There 
was  no  shock  to  his  own  mind;  the  motions  of  his 
mind  were  always  as  smooth  as  light,  as  silent  as  growth. 
He  had  believed  in  morals  and  ideas  rather  than  in 
Christ  all  the  time,  and  in  Unitarianism  from  the  start 
Christ  occupied  a  diminished  place.  The  only  jar  for 
Emerson  was  to  his  affections,  for  he  was  sorry  to  give 
pain  to  his  kindred ;  a  family  hope  and  pride  were  sacri 
ficed.  "  Whosoever  loves  father  or  mother  more  than  me 
is  not  worthy  of  me  "  was  a  text  often  in  his  thoughts. 
Truth  in  the  spirit  of  the  blaster  had  taken  the  vacant 
place  that  even  the  blaster  had  never  held  in  him.  He 
had  come  to  his  maturity,  to  be  a  law  unto  himself,  to 
be  no  other's  man ;  he  withdrew  into  himself  as  saints 
of  old  into  their  solitary  caves.  He  was,  as  has  been 
said,  an  extreme  individualist,  young  and  ^self-willed; 
and  he  had  come  now  into  his  own. 

It  must  be  recognized  that  the  particular  occasion 
of  his  leaving  the  church  was  incidental ;  he  was 
already  disjoined  from  all  social  and  institutional  re 
ligion  in  spirit,  and  knew  the  fact.  He  had  gone  out 
on  a  question  of  form ;  but  the  fact  was  that  his  faith 
had  ceased  to  be  Christian,  and  no  longer  moved 
through  the  channels  of  organized  religion  except 
with  friction  and  embarrassment.  Public  prayer  in 
an  official  form  was  unwelcome  to  him,  and  he  had 
long  felt  that  it  contained  an  essential  element  of 
insincerity,  of  inadequacy,  of  suppression  of  individu 
ality,  He  was  incapable  of  taking  a  social  viewrof 


38  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

subduing  himself  to  the  mass  even  as  their  leader. 
He  had  nothing  in  him  of  the  orator  who  finds  him 
self  in  the  hearts  of  his  audiences,  or  of  the  politician 
who  embodies  the  thought  and  aspiration  of  a  party; 
he  could  not  take  on  the  character  of  a  representative 
person  and  be  the  organ  of  a  community  of  worship. 
As  early  as  January,  1832,  he  wrote  in  his  Journal, 
"  It  is  the  best  part  of  the  man,  I  sometimes  think, 
that  revolts  most  against  his  being  a  minister  " ;  and 
again  he  wrote,  "  The  profession  is  antiquated."  He 
seems  to  have  behaved  with  regard  to  it  as  he  had 
done  with  respect  to  his  college  studies  and  to  school- 
keeping  ;  he  tried  to  do  his  external  duty,  but  it  was 
against  the  grain.  In  the  end  his  own  character  pre 
vailed.  Yet  he  did  not  recognize  the  gravity  of  his 
act.  He  seems  to  have  looked  on  Christianity  and  all 
its  adjuncts  as  an  accident  that  the  church  could  lay 
aside,  and  yet  the  church  remain,  —  a  universal  reli 
gion  in  which  he  could  still  minister  in  his  place.  In 
severing  his  relation  with  his  charge,,  and  abandoning 
ritual,  he  did  not  look  on  himself  as  separating  from 
the  church  itself;  he  was  slow  to  understand  that 
his  place  was  no  longer  in  the  pulpit,  and  he  discov 
ered  the  fact  only  much  later  and  with  reluctance. 

The  incident  of  his  resignation  had  come  in  the 
train  of  private  misfortune  and  grief.  His  wife  had 
died  February  8,  1831 ;  through  these  months  it  was 
his  habit  to  walk  out  to  Eoxbury  in  the  early  morn 
ing  to  visit  her  grave.  The  strain  of  these  events  had 
affected  his  health,  and  it  was  thought  best  that  he 
should  seek  relief  in  a  foreign  voyage.  He  wrote  a 
letter  of  farewell  to  the  church,  December  22,  and 
sailed  from  Boston,  Christmas  Day.  He  landed  at 


i.]  THE   VOICE  OBEYED   AT   PRIME  39 

Malta,  passed  on  into  Sicily  by  Syracuse  and  Messina 
northward  to  Naples,  Rome,  and  Venice,  and  arrived 
in  Paris  by  June.  His  health  was  greatly  improved ; 
he  had  not  been  so  well  since  college  days.  He  was, 
however,  lonely  and  weary;  he  was  not  a  good  trav 
eller;  and  he  was  neither  adapted  by  cultivation  to 
appreciate  the  things  of  an  old  civilization,  nor  had 
he  any  entrance  either  to  popular  or  social  life.  He 
had  the  eye  of  a  foreigner,  and  was  swathed  in  pro 
vincialism.  He  was  so  impervious  that  the  voyage 
had  no  effect  in  enlarging  his  mind,  and  he  after 
ward  shows  in  his  writings  a  certain  contempt  for 
the  benefits  of  travel.  What  he  wrote  of  Venice 
is  a  sufficient  illustration;  seen  from  the  sea,  in  June, 
it  "  looked  for  some  time  like  nothing  but  New  York. 
It  is  a  great  oddity,  a  city  for  beavers,  but  to  my 
thought  a  most  disagreeable  residence.  You  feel 
always  in  prison  and  solitary.  It  is  as  if  you  were 
always  at  sea.  I  soon  had  enough  of  it."  He  sums 
up  his  journey :  "  A  man  who  was  no  courtier,  but 
loved  men,  went  to  Kome,  and  there  lived  with  boys. 
He  came  to  France,  and  in  Paris  lives  alone  and  sel 
dom  speaks.  If  he  do  not  see  Carlyle  in  Edinburgh, 
he  may  go  back  to  America  without  saying  anything 
in  earnest,  except  to  Cranch  and  Landor."  The  hope 
of  meeting  some  of  the  writers  whom  he  most  ad 
mired,  and  especially  Carlyle,  had  been  the  determin 
ing  cause  of  his  going  to  Europe  rather  than  to  the 
West  Indies  to  see  Edward.  The  day  spent  with 
Carlyle  at  Craigenputtock  was  memorable  as  a  recog 
nition  by  each  other  of  two  highly  contrasted  spirits 
and  the  beginning  of  lifelong  friendship  between  them. 
He  also  saw  Landor,  Coleridge,  and  Wordsworth.  But 


40  RALPH   WALDO    EMERSON  [CHAP. 

in  meeting  these  men  he  lost  his  last  illusion;  there 
was  to  be  no  companionship  for  him  even  with  great 
men ;  he  was  disappointed  in  their  quality,  and  never 
afterward  expected  to  find  sufficiency  in  others.  To 
avoid  great  men  became  a  maxim  with  him;  they 
were  sure  to  disappoint  one's  hopes.  The  particular 
defect  in  these  four  was  their  lack  of  insight  into 
religious  truth.  "  They  have  no  idea,"  he  writes,  "  of 
that  species  of  moral  truth  which  I  call  the  first 
philosophy."  That  is,  to  speak  bluntly,  they  did  not 
measure  to  his  yard.  It  was  almost  a  professional 
narrowness ;  he  had  the  mind  of  the  minister,  though 
he  had  the  ideas  of  the  transcendentalist.  Upon  the 
voyage  home  he  reviewed  the  situation ;  there  was 
much  seething  within  him ;  his  own  thoughts  came  in 
flocks,  like  birds  preparing  for  a  flight ;  but  the  mo 
ment  had  not  yet  arrived.  He  ends,  "  I  know  not,  I 
have  no  call  to  expound ;  but  this  is  my  charge,  plain 
and  clear,  to  act  faithfully  upon  my  own  faith ;  to 
live  by  it  myself,  and  see  what  a  hearty  obedience 
will  do."  He  arrived  in  Boston,  October  9,  1833. 

He  joined  his  mother  and  lived  with  her  at  Newton. 
The  difficulty  of  self-support  was  obviated  by  an  in 
heritance  from  his  wife's  share  of  her  father's  estate, 
which  assured  him  an  income  of  twelve  hundred  dol 
lars  a  year.  He  had  a  dream  of  settling  in  the  Berk- 
shires,  calling  Edward  home  to  live  with  him,  and 
starting  a  magazine  of  which  the  brothers  should  be 
chief  contributors ;  but  nothing  came  of  this  scheme. 
He  occupied  himself  with  preaching  and  lecturing. 
He  gave  a  sermon  at  his  own  church  immediately  on 
his  return,  of  which  the  burden  was  that  a  reform  was 
at  hand,  a  change  from  the  ancient  federal  idea  of 


i.]  THE   VOICE   OBEYED   AT   PKIME  41 

religion  as  a  thing  of  the  race  to  an  individualistic 
conception  of  it  as  a  thing  of  the  private  soul.  Such 
a  millennial  expectation  of  the  approach  of  a  new  state 
of  things,  or  the  appearance  of  a  great  man  to  renew 
and  purify  the  days,  was  a  frequent  mental  condition 
with  him  in  the  after  course  of  his  life  and  thought. 
He  usually  preached  every  Sunday  for  four  years. 
He  added  lecturing  to  his  labours,  generally  in  con 
nection  with  some  association,  like  the  Natural 
History  Society,  the  Mechanic  Apprentices'  Library, 
the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge,  or 
the  American  Institute  of  Instruction  —  Boston  organ 
izations.  He  began  with  popular  science  and  travel, 
but  soon  passed  on  to  biography  and  literature.  In 
this  way  he  lectured  in  the  season  of  1833-183-4  on 
TJie  Relation  of  Man  to  the  Globe  and  on  Water,  for  ex 
ample  ;  in  1834-1835  on  Italy  and  also  on  Michael 
Angela,  Luther,  Milton,  George  Fox,  and  Burke,  with 
an  introduction  on  the  Tests  of  Great  Men;  and  in 
1835-1836  on  English  Literature,  a  complete  popular 
survey  from  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Scott,  in  ten  lectures. 
He  gave  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem  at  Harvard  in  the 
summer  of  1834,  his  first  personal  appearance  as  a 
poet,  but  the  Hymn  written  for  the  ordination  of  his 
successor  in  the  North  Church  shortly  before  was  the 
earliest  poetical  publication.  He  also  gave,  Septem 
ber  12,  1835,  the  Address  on  the  occasion  of  the  sec 
ond  centennial  anniversary  of  the  incorporation  of  the 
town  of  Concord,  and  on  the  19th  of  April,  1836, 
he  contributed  the  Concord  Hymn  to  the  patriotic 
celebration  of  the  day  at  the  dedication  of  the  battle 
monument.  During  these  years  he  especially  preached 
at  New  Bedford,  where  he  failed  to  be  settled  because 


42  KALPH   WALDO    EMERSON  [CHAP. 

he  stipulated  that  he  should  neither  celebrate  the 
communion  nor  offer  prayer  unless  moved  to  pray  at 
the  moment,  and  at  East  Lexington,  near  Concord, 
where  he  served  regularly  for  three  years. 

He  had  now  settled  at  Concord.  In  October,  1834, 
he  and  his  mother  had  joined  Dr.  Eipley  at  the  Old 
Manse.  It  was  at  the  moment  of  Edward's  death  in 
Porto  Rico,  where  his  life  ended  on  the  first  of  that 
month.  After  a  year's  residence,  in  the  fall  of  1835, 
he  took  the  house  which  was  ever  after  his  home,  hav 
ing  bought  it  for  thirty-five  hundred  dollars.  He  had 
married,  September  14,  Lydia  Jackson,  a  lady  of  Ply 
mouth.  Charles  and  his  mother  both  joined  him  in 
his  new  home,  and  all  were  happy  in  the  expectation 
that  his  brother  also  would  soon  be  married  and  the 
two  families  would  live  together.  In  the  spring  of 
1836,  however,  Charles,  who  had  fulfilled  the  promise 
of  his  college  career  and  was  well  advanced  in  his 
legal  studies,  fell  suddenly  ill  with  quick  consump 
tion,  and  died  in  May,  in  New  York,  while  on  his 
journey  south.  This  second  bereavement  of  a  beloved 
brother  was  met  by  Emerson  with  his  customary 
placid  fortitude,  but  he  felt  it  as  a  deflowering  of  his 
life.  Solemnized  by  such  sorrow,  his  youth  became  to 
him  a  sacred  memory  ;  he  again  and  again  returned  to 
it  in  his  verse,  and  this  music  of  his  boyhood  with  his 
brothers  is  the  deepest  personal  chord  of  his  poetry. 
How  strangely  things  fall  out !  The  group  of  rosy 
boys  —  none  too  ruddy,  it  is  to  be  feared  —  had  gone 
to  their  fates  ;  poverty  and  ambition  are  hard  task 
masters,  hardest  to  the  best ;  two,  the  most  brilliant 
and  admired,  were  dead ;  the  eldest  had  found  a  use 
ful  and  undistinguished  career  in  the  law;  and  the 


i.]  THE   VOICE    OBEYED   AT  PRIME  43 

last,  hardly  surviving  by  those  dull  integuments  of 
apathy  and  coldness  and  slowness,  had  lived  only  to 
leave  the  profession  which  had  been  the  goal  of  their 
youthful  hopes.  The  old  mother  had  her  chamber  of 
peace  in  his  home  where  she  was  to  pass  many  tranquil 
years.  For  him  life  went  on  in  his  Concord  seclusion, 
but  it  was  robbed  of  its  morning.  In  the  fall  his  first 
child,  a  son,  was  born.  Though  he  had,  in  a  sense, 
stood  aside  from  life,  and  seemed  in  many  ways  to 
hold  but  a  left-handed  relation  to  the  world,  he  was 
much  occupied.  If  the  world  did  not  want  him,  —  and 
this  is  a  note  often  heard  in  his  self-confidences  and 
letters  at  this  time,  —  yet  that  was  not  his  affair.  He 
would  do  his  part,  as  he  had  opportunity,  in  his  un 
regarded  corner.  He  could  help  to  introduce  Carlyle 
to  his  countrymen,  for  example,  and  in  the  summer 
of  this  year  did  so  with  a  preface  to  the  first  Ameri 
can  edition  of  Sartor  Resartus.  He  had  taken  one 
unalterable  resolution  on  settling  in  Concord,  "  Hence 
forth  I  design  not  to  utter  any  speech,  poem,  or  book 
that  is  not  entirely  and  peculiarly  my  work."  He  had 
achieved  self-reliance,  and  in  this  leave-taking  of  all 
others  he  had  found  the  pathway  of  his  leadership. 


CHAPTER   II 

"  NATURE  "    AND    ITS    COROLLARIES 

EMERSON  had  at  all  times  an  enormous  power  of  re 
sistance  to  his  environment.  Through  these  early  years 
in  the  home  of  his  boyhood,  in  his  obscure  and  sickly 
youth,  in  the  Old  North  Church,  however  he  might  be 
externally  occupied  with  things  of  use  and  wont,  be 
neath  the  daily  crust  of  college  work,  school  work,  and 
church  work,  he  lived  another  life ;  there  the  new  life 
was  forming  as  under  an  old  shell.  He  expressed  this 
life  in  verse  ;  nothing  is  more  significant  than  the  per 
sistence  with  which  he  continued  to  write  it,  though 
undistinguished  and  mediocre  and  without  any  mark 
of  genius  ;  it  was  the  sign  of  his  solitude,  of  his  self- 
trust  and  self-absorption.  He  was  intimately  aware 
of  the  poetic  part  of  his  nature,  and  early  idealized  it 
and  set  it  apart  as  a  higher  self.  "A  certain  poet 
told  me,"  he  was  afterward  accustomed  to  write,  and 
later  he  named  him  Osman ;  it  was  this  poet  known 
within ;  and  The  Discontented  Poet :  a  Masque,  a  work 
never  completed,  was  self-portraiture  begun  in  these 
years.  He  was  not  deceived,  for  he  was  primarily 
a  poet,  though  with  imperfect  faculty,  and  had  the 
habits  of  a  poet,  both  personal  and  mental.  Thus 
from  the  budding  of  his  mind  he  meditated  and  brooded 
and  waited;  and  whatever  came  to  him  to  be  received, 
he  demanded  of  it  that  it  should  have  a  preestablished 

44 


CHAP,  ii.]       "NATURE"   AND   ITS   COROLLARIES       45 

harmony  with  his  life  and  a  power  of  intimacy  with 
his  soul, 'self-evidence  that  should  lie  in  its  being  a 
revelation  of  himself ;  indifferent  to  argument,  impa 
tient  of  opinion,  he  would  have  only  that  conviction  of 
truth  which  consists  of  the  life  itself.  He  was  also, 
in  the  intellectual  part  of  his  nature,  a  moralist;  it 
was  the  moral  nature  of  things  that  was  dearest  to 
him,  not  passion  or  action  as  such,  not  science  nor 
letters,  not  divinity,  but  morals.  He  had  collected 
truisms,  since  he  could  think  at  all,  —  old  saws  as  he 
afterward  designated  them ;  but  these  had  more  than 
their  proverbial  and  commonplace  character  of  scat 
tered  wisdom  in  his  eyes  ;  they  brought  law  with  them 
from  the  first,  they  showed  the  moral  nature  of  man, 
they  declared  God.  He  was,  too,  in  the  third  place, 
deeply  pledged  to  that  mood  which  makes  the  uni 
verse  the  theatre  of  the  soul,  and  for  each  man  prima 
rily  of  his  own  soul,  as  that  in  which  from  the  forma 
tion  of  the  world  all  that  is  is  interested ;  no  thinker 
has  more  exalted  the  private  soul,  and  no  man  has 
borne  his  ''eternal  part"  with  greater  pride.  He 
required  an  arrangement  of  truth  that  should  corre 
spond  to  this  threefold  nature  of  the  poet,  the  mor 
alist,  and  the  mystic  devotee,  and  in  his  germinating 
time  he  found  it  in  the  group  of  related  ideas  known 
as  transcendentalism  for  which  Channinghad  prepared 
him  and  in  which  Coleridge  instructed  him  ;  he  had 
truly  no  other  teachers.  Transcendentalism  contained 
the  preestablished  harmony  with  himself  that  he  de 
manded  ;  it  was  adapted  equally  to  his  strength  and  to 
his  weakness ;  impulse,  character,  preference,  his  de 
ficiency  and  his  redundancy,  it  chimed  with  all  his 
temperament  and  the  natural  motions  of  his  mind, 


46  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  gave  him  to  himself  upon  every  side.  It  disbur 
dened  him  of  the  incubus  of  the  past;  it  made  him 
sovereign  in  his  own  right ;  it  delivered  into  his  hands 
the  entire  universe  to  be  his  own.  Morality  was  fun 
damental  in  it ;  poetry  radiated  from  it ;  it  crowned 
self,  and  invested  the  private  soul  with  a  universal 
sceptre.  In  proportion  as  he  absorbed  the  ideas  of 
transcendentalism,  Emerson  came  to  intellectual  ma 
turity;  he  was  made  a  man-thinker;  his  original  force 
was  released.  These  discoveries,  this  illumination 
slowly  going  on,  all  this  formation  of  a  new  soul  in 
nature  was  accomplished  at  his  thirtieth  year.  The 
time  was  ripe.  Old  things  began  to  fall  away  in  that 
protective  external  environment  in  which  he  had 
grown,  and  especially  the  temporal  and  circumstantial 
marks  of  Christianity  fell  off.  He  left  the  "  antiquated 
profession  "  ;  he  ceased  to  put  his  thoughts  forth  in  a 
Christian  dress;  he  put  them  forth  in  the  dress  of 
transcendental  ideas.  There  was  really  less  change 
than  appeared.  They  were  the  same  thoughts ;  he 
was  the  same  man ;  he  had  never  changed  his  faith, 
for  he  had  only  one.  But  he  had  cast  the  old  skin. 

The  little  book  called  Nature  was  the  publication  of 
this  fact.  It  announced  Emerson's  genius.  It  might 
seem  a  slender  offering  for  a  young  man  of  thirty- 
three,  a  few  chapters  of  poetical  thoughts  upon  well- 
worn  themes.  In  the  substance  there  is  nothing  novel, 
but  there  is  in  the  book  a  certain  exhilaration,  a  vitali- 
zation.  It  was  published  in  the  fall  of  1836  ;  like  all 
his  work  it  had  been  much  rewritten.  Three  years 
earlier,  on  his  voyage  home,  he  had  mentioned  in  his 
Journal  being  pleased  with  "my  book  about  Nature," 
and  it  was  doubtless  this  which  he  recast  and  added  to 


IT.]  "NATURE"   AND   ITS   COROLLARIES  47 

in  the  summer  of  1836  to  make  the  published  volume. 
Its  inception  would  seem  to  belong  to  the  period  of 
his  resignation.  That  event  threw  him  back  upon  his 
own  mind  ;  and  in  the  solitude  of  travel  and  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  new  mode  of  public  appeal  he  wrote 
his  first  secular  essay.  It  bears  the  mark  of  its  origin. 
It  has  the  bloom  of  the  mind  upon  it.  It  is  one  of 
those  rare  books  which  seem  the  fruit  and  treasury 
of  happy  moments  ;  joy  in  the  truth  irradiates  it,  and 
at  times  the  excited  and  delighted  mind  puts  forth 
moods  like  dreams  and  passages  that  are  a  rhapsody 
of  intellect.  The  intoxication,  however,  is  sparingly 
indulged;  there  is  nothing  in  excess;  the  ideas  and 
scenes  are  few;  the  argument  is  brief.  Emerson's, 
grasp  upon  transcendentalism  was  neither  profound 
nor  various ;  he  was  not  a  metaphysician.  He  was  a 
literary  man  who  read  miscellaneously,  and  picked 
and  chose  what  he  liked,  taking  his  own  where  he 
found  it,  and  his  own  was  what  appealed  to  him, 
what  stimulated  him,  what  he  could  make  his  own. 
It  was  no  part  of  his  purpose  to  set  forth  transcen 
dentalism  itself,  but  to  show  its  working  in  him.  The 
book,  in  fact,  does  not  so  much  directly  address  the 
mind  as  use  the  indirections  of  Nature  herself  upon 
the  soul ;  the  sunrise,  the  haze  of  autumn,  the  winter 
starlight,  seem  the  interlocutors,  the  prevailing  sense 
is  that  of  an  exposition  in  poetry,  a  high  discourse ; 
the  voice  of  the  speaker  seems  to  breathe  as  much  from 
the  landscape  as  from  his  own  breast ;  it  is  Nature  com 
muning  with  the  seer.  Emerson  never  again  rendered 
the  state  of  his  own  soul  in  the  visible  world  with 
such  reality ;  here  he  showed  himself  played  upon  by 
the  ministries  that  shaped  him  with  invisible  hands. 


48  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

There  is  this  personal  charm  in  the  book.  The  few 
stems  of  transcendental  thought,  dry  and  stiff  in  state 
ment,  are  readily  discerned,  most  clearly  in  those  more 
extraneous  parts  of  the  discourse  which  were  added  for 
the  sake  of  rounding  out  his  treatment  of  the  subject, 
but  they  ramify  in  every  part  alike. 

These  ideas  may  be  briefly  described,  for  there  is  no 
occasion  to  elaborate  them  in  this  place.  There  are 
but  three,  but  they  are  all-embracing.  First,  with 
regard  to  the  soul :  the  soul  is  divine  and  identical  in 
all  men,  a  spark  of  eternity,  yet  with  light  to  disclose 
the  infinite  of  nature  without  and  by  an  inner  ray  to 
reveal  its  own  eternal  ground  of  being;  thus  it  pos 
sesses  the  means  of  all  knowledge,  whether  of  self,  of 
Nature,  or  of  God.  Secondly,  with  regard  to  Nature : 
Nature  is  the  gigantic  shadow  of  God  cast  in  the  senses, 
or,  metaphysically,  the  realization  of  God  in  the  un 
conscious  ;  its  sole  function  is  to  unlock  the  capacities 
of  the  soul,  whether  as  energy  or  as  knowledge;  to 
supplement  it  as  the  material  supplements  the  tool,  to 
distribute  its  consciousness  as  the  prism  distributes 
the  ray,  to  fulfil  its  being  as  his  destiny  fulfils  the  man ; 
it  is  the  agency  by  which  the  soul  becomes  apparent  in 
power  and  knowledge,  and  it  is  adequate  to  unfold  the 
entire  latency  of  the  soul.  Thirdly,  with  regard  to 
God :  deity  has  unobstructed  access  to  all  of  every 
soul,  and  conversely  every  soul  has  like  access  to  all 
of  deity,  the  process  in  either  case  being  a  divine  in 
flowing,  yet  not  continuously  felt  but  rather  in  moments 
of  exaltation  such  as  are  and  can  be  only  self-certified, 
the  mystic  moments  of  seemingly  impersonal  or 
expanded  being.  These  three  ideas  —  the  primacy  of 
the  soul,  the  sufficiency  of  Nature,  and  the  immediacy 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND  ITS  COROLLARIES  49 

of  God — are  the  triple  root  from  which  grows  Emer 
son's  entire  thought  of  the  universe,  in  a  philosophical 
sense.  In  this  slim  volume  the  first  and  last  of  these 
ideas  are  subordinated ;  it  is  the  second  that  is  in  full 
play,  the  idea  of  Nature.  Nature  is  presented  in  four 
aspects  of  her  service :  that  of  commodity,  or  natural 
utility ;  that  of  beauty,  for  delight  in  the  visible  scene 
as  such  or  as  the  setting  of  man's  action,  or,  again,  as 
the  material  of  art ;  that  of  language,  experience  being 
the  ground  of  all  expression  and  hence  facts  the  means 
of  speech,  both  directly  and  symbolically,  and  the  last 
is  a  higher  degree  of  value,  since  the  series  of  things 
in  Nature  corresponds  to  the  series  of  thought  in  the 
mind,  and  therefore  things  of  themselves  are  a  better 
expression  of  thought  than  any  words  can  be ;  lastly, 
that  of  discipline,  both  of  the  understanding  in  learning 
and  of  the  will  in  conforming,  and  most  importantly 
of  the  latter,  since  Nature  is  completely  moral,  made 
of  the  moral,  permeated  with  it,  filled  by  it  without 
a  flaw,  and  imposes  the  moral  upon  man  to  which  he 
must  yield  as  to  the  necessary  laws  of  his  welfare. 
This  account  of  the  offices  of  Nature  is  followed  by  a 
lightly  framed  presentation  of  the  doctrine  of  philosophi 
cal  idealism  and  of  the  immanence  of  spirit,  and  a  conclu 
sion  is  made  by  a  kind  of  epilogue  in  which  the  purification 
of  the  soul  is  represented  as  bringing  about  the  reno 
vation  of  nature,  and  the  individual  is  counselled  to 
begin  so  to  build  a  new  world.  Such,  slightly  indicated, 
is  the  character  of  the  contents  of  this  book,  which, 
however,  is  less  remembered  for  its  substratum  of 
philosophy  than  for  the  lovely  scenes  of  rural  descrip 
tion  sown  through  it,  the  flashing  facets  of  the  ideas 
it  handles  in  the  detail  of  the  meditation,  and  the  uni- 

£ 


50  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

versal  mould  of  poetry  into  which,  it  casts  the  general 
notion  of  all  being.  It  is,  properly  speaking,  a  medi 
tation  upon  Nature,  originating  from  poetical  incite 
ment,  and  it  affects  the  reader  at  first,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  as  a  dream  of  the  mind  in  which  the  com 
binations  of  image  and  thought  take  place  with  a  sense 
of  strangeness,  and  although  without  a  jar,  yet  without 
reality.  It  admirably  fulfils  the  conditions  laid  down 
toward  its  conclusion,  "  A  wise  writer  will  feel  that 
the  ends  of  study  and  composition  are  best  answered  by 
announcing  undiscovered  regions  of  thought,  and  so 
communicating,  through  hope,  new  activity  to  the 
torpid  spirit." 

The  spirit  of  this  dictum  was  a  powerful  control 
ling  principle  in  Emerson's  method  of  life.  He  had 
observed  the  obvious  fact  that  the  minds  of  men  are 
stirred  by  ideas  which  they  imperfectly  comprehend ; 
and  being  by  predisposition  a  moralist,  he  was  inter 
ested  rather  in  the  energy  of  ideas  than  in  ideas  them 
selves.  He  was  not  a  pure  thinker ;  his  mind  did  not 
rest  in  the  intellectual  plane  and  there  endeavour  to  con 
nect  logically  and  systematically  truth  in  the  abstract ; 
he  viewed  truths  in  their  moral  action.  Ideas  were  to 
him  like  a  drug,  of  which  the  essence  lies  in  the  states 
of  mind  it  induces,  or  like  a  political  principle  of  which 
one  examines  not  the  abstract  soundness,  but  how  it 
works  in  practice.  Empiricism  and  expediency,  in  spir 
itual  matters,  are  large  elements  in  his  reflection  upon 
life.  It  belonged  to  his  intuitional  mind  to  be  careless 
of  the  correlations  of  thought,  since  the  process  by  which 
he  arrived  at  conviction  was  sure,  not  liable  to  error ; 
all  truths  would  harmonize  in  the  end,  being  self -exist 
ent  in  the  order  of  things ;  for  the  logical  faculty,  for 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND   ITS   COROLLARIES  51 

argument,  for  probable  opinion  and  deferred  judg 
ment,  for  reasoning  and  its  limitations,  he  had  little  re 
gard  —  these  things  did  not  interest  him.  Hardly  less 
fundamental  in  his  character  than  his  power  of  resist 
ance  to  his  environment  was  his  power  to  ignore  what 
did  not  interest  him.  He  seized  on  certain  ideas 
which  brought  with  them  conviction  to  his  mind,  and 
concerned  himself  with  their  operation  rather  than 
their  justification  by  any  other  mode;  he  was,  thus,  an 
applier  of  ideas  to  life  —  that  was  his  function.  In 
this  small  book  of  Nature  there  was  an  entire  arsenal 
of  ideas,  in  the  energetic  sense ;  it  was  a  reservoir  of 
power  to  which  he  constantly  returned;  in  fact,  he 
added  but  little  to  the  store,  intellectually  speaking, 
in  after  life;  there  is,  perhaps,  no  important  idea 
in  his  later  writings  wjiich  is  not  here  contained  full 

grown   or   in   embryo, vBut   the   application  of    this 

material  was  a  lifelong  story,  a  never  ending  sermon 
from  this  text.  Placid  and  poetical  and  far  away  as 
the  little  transcendental  tract  appeared  in  its  blue 
covers,  it  contained  a  sheaf  of  swords;  it  seems  a  wild 
bower  of  quiet  foliage  starred  with  bloom  and  with 
outlooks  into  the  blue  distance,  a  talk  in  the  antique 
portico,  a  philosophical  dialogue  in  some  old  Italian 
garden  ;  but  it  was  a  twig  of  the  Kevolution,  its  ideas 
had  riving  force,  they  were  explosive,  anarchic. 

Emerson  made  the  first  important  application  of  his 
ideas  to  life  on  the  occasion  of  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Address  at  Harvard,  August  31,  1837,  —  "  an  event," 
says  Lowell,  "  without  any  former  parallel  in  our  liter 
ary  annals,  a  scene  to  be  always  treasured  in  the  mem 
ory  for  its  picturesqueness  and  its  inspiration.  What 
crowded  and  breathless  aisles,  what  windows  clustering 


52  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

with  eager  heads,  what  enthusiasm  of  approval,  what 
grim  silence  of  foregone  dissent !  "  Alcott  described 
the  Address  as  "the  first  adequate  statement  of  the 
new  views  that  really  attracted  general  attention." 
Its  subject  was  Tlie  American  Scholar.  It  presented 
the  scholar  as  the  thinker  of  the  community,  formed 
and  fashioned  by  Nature,  which  is  the  direct  source 
of  truth,  indebted  to  books  but  *  only  as  their  master, 
and  developed  by  action  in  which  alone  truth  is 
vital;  the  duty  of  the  scholar  is  self-trust,  and  his 
office  is,  in  an  age  marked  by  democracy  and  individu 
ality,  to  affirm  himself  in  the  faith  that  if  he  obeys 
his  own  instincts  the  whole  world  will  come  round  to 
him.  There  was  nothing  startling  in  this,  to  read  it 
now,  save  in  the  vigorous  expression;  one  sees  it  is 
his  own  apology  and  declaration  of  principles,  for  the 
man  was  the  main  part  of  the  speech  ;  but  the  living 
words  touched  the  time.  The  gleam  of  them  was  a 
rally  to  one  party,  and  the  other  party  felt  their  edge ; 
for  he  stood  there  as  a  champion. 

For  some  years  a  movement  had  been  gathering 
and  growing  in  the  community.  It  began,  perhaps, 
by  1820 ;  it  was  assisted  by  the  writings  of  Carlyle ; 
but  essentially  it  was  an  indigenous  change  consequent 
on  the  decadence  of  Puritanism  in  the  more  intelligent 
and  better  instructed  circles,  and  especially  in  the  im 
mediate  neighbourhood  of  Boston  ;  and  it  fed  on  what 
ever  came  to  hand  from  the  flotsam  of  time,  and 
especially  from  the  East.  It  was  a  wave  of  new  life, 
of  innovation  in  thought.  The  freedom  of  a  democ 
racy,  ungyved  by  the  presence  of  an  old  civilization, 
favoured  it.  In  a  score  of  years  it  found  expression,  and 
all  its  vagaries  were  blanketed  with  one  name,  New 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND  ITS  COROLLARIES  53 

England  Transcendentalism.  Simultaneously,  cognate 
agitations,  currents,  and  eddies  in  the  great  stream 
of  general  reform  were  going  on.  The  variety  of  its 
manifest  modes  was  infinite,  and  many  of  them  af 
fected  men  with  laughter.  Lowell  and  Hawthorne, 
who  were  young  men  at  the  time,  have  amply  indulged 
their  humour  in  describing  what  they  saw ;  and  Emer 
son's  own  account  hardly  veils  his  amusement.  The 
general  unrest  came  to  a  head  in  the  Chardon  Street 
Convention,  1840-1841,  of  which  he  names  the  compo 
nent  parts  :  "  Madmen,  mad  women,  men  with  beards, 
Dunkers,  Muggletonians,  Gome-Outers,  Groaners,  Agra 
rians,  Seventh-day  Baptists,  Quakers,  Abolitionists, 
Calvinists,  Unitarians,  and  philosophers,"  —  a  convoca 
tion  of  dissent.  The  catalogue  of  the  pure  transcen 
dental  sectaries  would  be  quite  as  disorderly  and 
picturesque.  It  was  a  decade  of  carnival  for  reform. 
Eccentricity  of  opinion  and  behaviour  reached  the 
extreme.  The  great  causes,  Abolition,  Labour,  Temper 
ance,  survived  ;  the  rest  fell  back  among  the  anomalies 
of  life  always  present  in  society  that  awake  no  atten 
tion  by  their  harmless  singularity.  In  general,  how 
ever,  the  features  of  a  period  of  extreme  individualism 
stand  out;  and  in  that  province  where  transcendental 
ism  peculiarly  ruled  the  hour,  it  was  a  time  of  libera 
tion,  of  experiment  and  speculation,  and  of  active 
effort  to  incorporate  a  better  social  state.  It  was  in 
education,  religion,  and  economic  reorganization  that 
the  new  energy  most  worked,  but  the  "  Apostles  of  the 
Newness,"  as  they  were  called,  were  gifted  with  many 
tongues ;  the  mood  of  all  was  that  of  individualism  in 
rampant  protest;  and  it  was  this  mood  —  the  mood  of 
the  hour  —  which  found  its  bold,  peaceful,  arid  inspir- 


54  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

ing  spokesman  in  Emerson.  But  he  stood  apart  and 
joined  with  none  of  the  reformers  ;  for  association  with 
others  was  as  impossible  for  him  under  the  new  rule  as 
it  had  been  under  the  old  dispensation.  All,  however, 
were  aware  of  his  presence ;  and  he  fed  from  that 
time,  whenever  he  spoke,  the  spirit  of  revolt  and 
renewal. 

The  edge  of  his  attack  lay  in  the  bold  advocacy  of 
the  rights  of  the  individual,  of  whom  under  the  guise 
of  the  scholar  he  presented  the  ideal  type.  Scholar, 
in  the  new  vocabulary,  took  the  old  place  of  saint; 
he  was  man  perfected  in  the  attribute  of  self-trust,  the 
fundamental  virtue.  Authority  was  eliminated  from 
life ;  for  the  soul  alone  is  master,  and  being  in  direct 
union  with  God  upon  one  side  and  Nature  upon  the 
other,  needs  neither  mediator  nor  teacher,  and  in  fact 
cannot  allow  their  intervention,  but  must  directly  cer 
tify  all  truth ;  or,  in  other  words,  truth  cannot  come 
by  mediation.  The  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  the  past 
with  one  blow;  the  past  is  superfluous  and  abolished 
as  a  means  of  arriving  at  truth;  all  truth  is  here 
and  now,  divinely  present  and  divinely  communicated. 
Past  books  may,  indeed,  be  read,  when  the  direct 
communication  slackens,  but  it  is  only  to  restore  the 
interrupted  flow;  for  there  is  an  equality  in  souls, 
whence  no  man,  however  great,  shall  impose  truth 
upon  another ;  but  what  Goethe  knew  as  truth  the 
reader  shall  know  as  truth  in  the  same  way  as  Goethe, 
that  is,  not  by  Goethe's  superscription,  but  by  an  in 
ward  warrant  to  his  own  soul,  and  thus  is  Goethe's 
equal,  and  what  does  not  bear  this  private  warrant 
he  shall  reject  though  the  writer  were  ten  times 
Goethe;  all  great  writers  were  but  young  men  in 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND   ITS   COROLLARIES  55 

libraries  when  they  wrote  those  books,  and  the  read 
ers  are  young  men  in  libraries  now.  Institutions  of 
all  sorts,  which  are  the  past  incarnated,  must  answer 
to  the  same  challenge.  It  is  the  day  of  private  judg 
ment,  of  direct  intuition,  of  the  sufficient  soul  —  of 
the  individual ;  authority,  tradition,  institutions,  are 
under  his  feet ;  he  alone  is  sovereign,  and  only  in  the 
exercise  of  his  own  powers  in  a  sovereign  way  is  he  a 
man.  It  is  this  serene  and  complete  control  of  the 
past,  this  self-confidence  in  the  present,  this  unfettered 
freedom  to  remake  the  world  in  our  own  image,  that 
Emerson  upholds  as  the  ideal  of  the  scholar's  duty 
and  the  hope  of  the  America  that  shall  be. 

The  second  notable  occasion  on  which  Emerson  put 
forth  a  practical  application  of  his  thought  was  the 
delivery  of  the  Divinity  School  Address,  also  at  Har 
vard,  July  15, 1838.  In  this  he  engaged  himself  more 
closely  with  the  times  and  dealt  in  particular  with  the 
state  of  religion  in  the  community.  He  dwelt  on 
the  decay  of  religion  in  the  churches  and  sought  for 
the  source  and  remedy  of  this  condition.  He  attacked 
historical  Christianity,  of  which  the  church  of  tradition 
is  the  institution,  and  he  concentrated  his  criticism 
upon  the  sacred  authority  that  belongs  to  the  person 
of  Christ  as  the  divine  that  became  human  and  thence 
forth  the  lawgiver  of  the  soul  in  the  Christian  world. 
The  course  of  the  argument  is  plain  from  what  has  al 
ready  been  brought  forward  in  presenting  his  thought. 
The  authority  of  the  church  had  already  been  abolished 
by  the  doctrine  of  the  self-sufficiency  of  the  soul  by 
virtue  of  its  intuitive  faculty  which  is  the  sole  means 
of  truth.  With  regard  to  Christ,  Emerson  reversed 
the  old  conception;  instead  of  a  divine  person  becom- 


66  KALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

ing  human,  he  is  a  human  person  becoming  divine, 
and  the  chief  illustration  of  that  process  of  perfection 
by  which  every  soul  unites  with  the  divine ;  but  he 
differs  from  others  only  in  the  degree  of  his  progress, 
nor  does  his  superiority  vest  him  with  authority  over 
others,  any  more  than  in  the  case  of  Goethe,  but  each 
soul  must  follow  the  path  of  and  from  himself  and 
draw  strength,  not  from  Christ,  but  from  that  common 
source  which,  as  it  once  fed  the  soul  of  Christ,  now 
feeds  every  soul  born  into  the  world  of  Nature.  The 
doctrine  of  the  equality  of  souls  is  applied  to  Christ 
as  to  all  other  masters  of  the  past.  Emerson  also  in 
dicated,  though  less  clearly,  a  fresh  position  or  corol 
lary.  "  The  soul,"  he  said,  "  knows  no  persons."  This 
denied  the  personality  of  God  ;  nor  did  he  at  any  time 
figure  deity  as  a  form  of  personal  being.  The  general 
plea,  urged  with  great  spirituality  of  feeling,  was  that 
men  should  abandon  the  past,  that  is,  in  this  case,  the 
church  and  Christ  as  its  head,  and  no  longer  seek  truth 
there,  but  should  return  to  the  living  fountain  of  the 
divine  in  themselves. 

The  Address  stirred  the  waters  of  controversy.  The 
authorities  of  the  Divinity  School  felt  it  necessary  to 
disown  the  opinions  set  forth.  Dr.  Ware,  the  friend 
and  predecessor  of  Emerson  in  the  Old  North  Church, 
preached  a  kindly  sermon,  defining  the  serious  nature 
of  the  bearing  of  these  ideas  in  subverting  Christianity, 
and  Dr.  Andrews  Norton  denounced  them  as  an  irrup 
tion  of  German  atheism  in  the  community.  There 
were  many  pamphlets,  discourses,  and  criticisms. 
Emerson  stood  aloof  from  all,  seemingly  indifferent 
though  annoyed  by  the  publicity  that  the  agitation 
caused.  Dr.  Ware,  however,  drew  from  him  a  re- 


ii.]  "NATURE"  AND  ITS  COROLLARIES  57 

markably  plain  statement  of  his  intellectual  method 
and  the  ground  of  his  conviction  in  general.  He 
wrote,  in  reply  to  a  friendly  letter,  excusing  himself 
from  any  polemical  statement :  "  I  could  not  give 
account  of  myself  if  challenged.  I  could  not  pos 
sibly  give  you  one  of  the  t arguments'  you  cruelly 
hint  at,  on  which  any  doctrine  of  mine  stands;  for 
I  do  not  know  what  arguments  mean  in  reference  to 
any  expression  of  a  thought.  I  delight  in  telling 
what  I  think ;  but  if  you  ask  me  how  I  dare  say  so, 
or  why  it  is  so,  I  am  the  most  helpless  of  mortal 
men."  The  claim  of  intuition  to  immediate  know 
ledge  could  not  be  more  lucidly  presented  than  in  this 
declaration. 

Emerson  loved  the  church.  He  never  ceased  to  be 
at  heart  a  minister ;  he  was  preaching  at  this  time  in 
Unitarian  pulpits,  and  he  continued  to  preach,  though 
with  diminishing  frequency,  for  nine  years  after  this 
Address.  He  seems  never  to  have  understood  why  his 
doctrines  could  not  be  consistently  put  forth  at  the 
Christian  assembly  on  the  Sabbath,  for  he  regarded 
the  Sabbath  and  the  office  of  preaching  as  the  greatest 
benefits  that  Christianity  had  transmitted  to  the  social 
life.  He  valued  traditional  religion  in  a  threefold 
way.  He  retained  the  sentiment  for  the  old-time 
Sabbath  day  and  often  refers  to  its  disappearance 
with  regret,  both  for  its  atmosphere  of  external  quiet 
and  for  its  devotional  joy  in  the  gathered  congre 
gations  in  the  meeting-houses.  He  retained  also  a 
deeply  founded  respect  for  the  old-fashioned  Calvin 
ism  of  his  ancestry,  as  a  form  of  strong  character  and 
fervid  piety.  "What  a  debt  is  ours  to  that  old 
religion,"  he  exclaims,  "which  in  the  childhood  of 


58  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

most  of  us  still  dwelt  like  a  Sabbath  morning  in 
the  country  of  New  England,  teaching  privation,  self- 
denial,  and  sorrow.  A  man  was  born  not  for  pros 
perity,  but  to  suffer  for  the  benefit  of  others,  like  the 
noble  rock-maple  which  all  around  our  villages  bleeds 
for  the  service  of  man.  Not  praise,  not  men's  accept 
ance  of  our  doing,  but  the  spirit's  holy  errand  through 
us  absorbed  the  thought.  How  dignified  was  this!" 
It  is  a  sincere  motion  of  patriotism,  of  faith  to  the 
country  of  our  origins,  that  beats  in  this  passage  — 
the  voice  of  an  old  dweller  on  the  soil ;  and  this  re 
spect,  that  is  half  sad  affection,  Emerson  was  rich  in. 
Lastly,  he  valued  traditional  religion  in  a  less  attrac 
tive  way,  as  a  concession  to  a  lower  type  of  intelli 
gence  and  culture,  as  the  best  of  which  its  adherents 
were  capable  of  receiving,  and  as,  at  its  lowest,  a 
useful  police  power.  There  was  this  much  of  accom 
modation  in  his  mind.  He  had  made  Carlyle's  dis 
covery  of  "the  fool-part  of  man,"  and  ten  years 
before  this  time  he  had  applied  it  to  the  interpreta 
tions  of  Scripture  given  by  the  New  Jerusalem  Church. 
"The  interpretation  is  doubtless  wholly  false,"  he 
says,  "  and  if  the  fool-part  of  man  must  have  the  lie, 
if  truth  is  a  pill  that  can't  go  down  till  it  is  sugared 
with  superstition,  —  why,  then  I  will  forgive  the  last, 
in  the  belief  that  truth  will  enter  into  the  soul  so 
natively  and  assimilantly  that  it  will  become  part 
of  the  soul,  and  so  remain  when  the  falsehood  be 
comes  dry  and  peels  off."  A  similar  view  remained 
in  his  mind  with  regard  to  all  forms  of  religious 
teaching,  and  harmonized  with  that  invincible  pre 
disposition  to  value  ideas  for  their  moral  energy 
rather  than  their  intellectual  purity,  for  their  effect 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND  ITS   COROLLARIES  59 

on  life  rather  than  their  mental  precision.  In  this 
spirit,  and  from  a  position  conscious  of  superiority, 
he  saw  traditional  religion  continue  in  another  level 
of  life  with  content  and  even  satisfaction.  But  when 
ever  he  spoke,  despite  his  attachments  to  the  old  faith 
in  these  various  ways,  he  advanced  an  attack,  how 
ever  disguised  in  many  forms,  upon  the  establishment 
of  Christianity ;  he  sapped  its  bases  in  the  mind,  and  on 
all  occasions,  whatever  his  topic,  preached  the  divine 
authority  of  the  soul  itself  in  all  life,  free  of  every 
form  of  priest  or  creed  or  ritual,  of  church  or  Saviour, 
or  of  any  God  other  than  the  inflowing  divine  essence 
whose  operation  is  impersonal,  private,  and  unshared 
with  any  other.  Orthodoxy  was  a  strong  power  in 
New  England  and  comprised  the  mass  of  the  people ; 
his  own  sect  of  Unitarianism  excluded  him  from  their 
ranks,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  group  of  radicals 
and  their  associates ;  it  is  not  strange  that,  in  such 
circumstances,  Emerson,  after  the  delivery  of  this 
Address,  was  commonly  regarded  as  atheistical,  anti- 
Christian,  and  dangerous.  Condemnation  was  the  more 
unqualified  because  attention  was  naturally  given  at 
first  rather  to  what  he  denied  than  to  what  he  af 
firmed;  what  he  denied,  all  men  understood;  but  what 
he  affirmed,  few,  if  any,  clearly  made  out. 

A  third  notable  Address,  not  because  of  any  imme 
diate  stir  it  caused,  but  on  account  of  its  containing 
something  supplementary  to  his  view  of  Nature  pre 
viously  exposed  and  also  introducing  a  new  quality 
to  its  substance,  was  given  at  Waterville  College, 
Maine,  August  11,  1841.  It  was  entitled  Tlie, 
Method  of  Nature.  In  this  he  elaborates  the  general 
statement  that  Nature  works  not  to  particular  ends  but 


60  KALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

to  a  universe  of  ends ;  her  superabundance  of  energy 
is  such  that  particular  ends  become  insignificant  and 
indifferent ;  and  this  whirl  without  special  direction 
Emerson  denominates  "  the  ecstasy  of  Nature."  It  is 
to  be  observed  that  he  here  specifically  denies  that 
man  is  the  first  end  of  creation  ;  it  appears  to  him  that 
the  actual  product,  man  as  he  is,  or  as  he  has  been,  is 
a  result  altogether  inadequate  to  such  an  apparatus  of 
an  entire  universe  to  prepare  him.  Nature  is  therefore 
regarded  as  an  inexhaustible  overflow  of  power  without 
determination,  —  pure  energy.  In  this  aspect  she  and 
her  ways  are  held  up  as  a  model  for  human  life.  It  is 
affirmed  that  life  should  be  characterized  similarly  by 
an  ecstasy,  a  release  of  power  as  such,  without  solici 
tude  for  particular  ends  to  be  achieved.  Life,  in  fact, 
is  said  to  lose  itself  in  determinate  action,  for  the 
action  limits  it  progressively,  the  end  comes  to  be 
an  enslaving  element,  at  last  it  destroys  the  energy 
which  has  its  finality  in  it.  "  I  say  to  you  plainly," 
he  declares,  "  there  is  no  end  to  which  your  practical 
faculty  can  aim  so  sound  or  so  large  that,  if  pursued  for 
itself,  will  not  at  last  become  carrion  and  an  offence  to 
the  nostril."  Life  lies  in  tendency,  in  quality,  in  the 
release  of  energy,  not  in  its  results,  not  in  deeds,  not 
in  successes.  The  purpose  of  this  advice  is  to  throw 
the  soul  back  on  its  own  being,  as  the  main  of  life,  to 
save  it  from  the  self-limitation  inherent  in  applied 
power,  from  specialization,  from  preoccupation  with 
particular  causes,  from  anxiety  for  practical  effects ;  the 
soul  should  rejoice  in  its  power,  should  retain  its  power, 
above  all  things,  and  should  ignore  ends  as  things 
that  may  be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves  after 
Nature's  fashion.  The  term  "ecstasy"  is  intended 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND   ITS   COROLLARIES  61 

specifically  to  mark  this  mood  of  oblivion  to  results, 
this  absorption  in  the  sense  and  exercise  of  power, 
this  exaltation  of  the  working  energy  in  itself,  as  the 
primary  value  of  life  ;  love  and  genius  are  dwelt  on  as 
the  greater  forms  of  this  energy,  but  the  weight  of  the 
thought  goes  to  depreciate  the  practical  and  earthly 
affairs  of  the  soul  as  things  essentially  indifferent  and 
on  a  lower  plane  than  its  own  being.  Apart  from  its 
general  interest,  the  Address  explains  and  in  a  sense 
defends  Emerson's  habitual  withdrawal  from  practical 
projects  of  reform  and  his  apparent  indifference  to 
the  effect  of  his  words  upon  the  society  about  him.  It 
contains,  like  all  his  opinions,  a  personal  point  of  view. 
Emerson  delivered  other  Addresses,  neighbouring 
these  in  time  and  matter:  Literary  Ethics  at  Dart 
mouth  College,  1838 ;  Man  the  Reformer,  TJie  Times, 
The  Conservative,  at  Boston,  in  1841 ;  TJie  Tran- 
scendentalist,  in  1842,  and  The  Young  American  in 
1844,  also  at  Boston.  They  contain  further  illus 
tration  and  elaboration  of  these  leading  ideas.  He 
also  gave  courses  of  lectures  in  Boston.  The  cir 
cle  that  he  reached  was,  however,  not  large.  Na 
ture  t  his  single  book,  sold  only  five  hundred  copies 
in  twelve  years.  His  audiences  were  generally  from 
three  hundred  to  five  hundred  persons,  and  are  said 
to  have  been  the  same  persons  year  after  year.  The 
propaganda  of  his  views  was  therefore  limited.  His 
influence  was  of  the  intensive  kind.  It  is  described 
by  most  of  those  who  have  reported  their  impression, 
rather  as  an  effect  on  the  spirit  than  on  the  mind ; 
whether  the  ideas  were  valid,  or  precisely  what  they 
were,  might  be  a  matter  of  doubt  even  then  and  there, 
but  "they  did  the  hearers  good."  It  was  an  enfran- 


62  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

chising  power  that  Emerson  put  forth,  a  liberation 
that  he  accomplished;  and,  secondly,  and  hardly 
less,  it  was  a  stimulating  power  felt  in  invigorating 
the  confidence  and  hopes  of  the  party  of  intellectual 
advance  and  especially  of  the  young  and  ardent  souls, 
many  of  whom  were  isolated  in  the  community.  He 
made  for  liberalism  in  all  its  forms.  He  did  not 
endeavour  to  replace  old  ways  with  a  new  confession 
and  rite ;  he  merely  supplied  a  spirit  to  those  suscept 
ible  of  it,  who  for  one  reason  or  another  were  left  to 
self-guidance  and  came  under  his  influence. 

In  his  general  position,  Emerson  represents  in  re 
ligion  the  substitution  of  philosophical  for  theological 
thought.  There  comes  a  time  in  human  develop 
ment  when  the  more  thoughtful  of  mankind  reject  the 
mythology  which  under  whatever  form  the  race  has 
inherited  from  its  past ;  theogonies  and  all  their  ap 
paratus  are  disregarded  as  outworn,  and  in  their  place  a 
metaphysical  explanation  of  the  universe  is  set  up,  in 
which  the  universe  is  contemplated  not  as  being  in  the 
order  of  time,  of  history,  but  in  the  present  as  it  must 
always  be,  sub  specie  etemitatis,  an  eternal  Now.  This 
step  out  of  the  past  into  the  present,  out  of  theology 
into  philosophy,  out  of  mythology  into  metaphysics, 
was  taken  by  Emerson.  He  is  the  sole  important 
representative  of  this  stage  in  American  literature  ; 
that  is  his  true  significance.  He  was  the  incarna 
tion  of  the  moment  of  change,  and  by  the  genius  of  his 
temperament  and  the  accident  of  his  situation  so  per 
fectly  adapted  to  embody  and  express  it  that  his  ideas 
seem  phases  of  his  own  soul,  parts  of  his  personality. 
He  is  integral  with  his  thought.  His  defects  even,  as 
they  must  seem  from  one  point  of  view,  gave  greater 


ii.]  "NATURE"   AND   ITS   COROLLARIES  63 

purity  to  his  qualities  as  the  interpreter  of  the 
moment  of  change.  He  was,  for  example,  destitute  of 
the  historic  sense ;  he  saw  life  in  one  dimension  only, 
in  the  plane  of  the  present,  the  Xow  of  the  metaphy 
sicians.  This  partly  accounts  for  his  contented  disre 
gard  of  the  past  with  its  vast  accumulations,  for 
the  slight  value  he  placed  on  the  things  of  old  civiliza 
tion,  on  its  art,  for  example,  as  well  as  on  its  religion, 
and  for  his  slackened  hold  on  the  institutional  life 
of  the  race  through  its  entire  range.  It  accounts, 
too,  for  his  native  sympathy  with  lonely  and  especially 
early  minds  which  have  something  primitive  and 
released  from  contemporaneity  in  their  greatness,  in 
whose  presence  as  in  reading  classic  books  he  felt  that 
time  was  abolished.  A  raw  and  provincial  commu 
nity  and  the  democracy  were  his  natural  milieu.  He 
was  emancipated  from  Europe  by  his  birth,  and  he 
was  never  naturalized  there  by  his  culture.  Yet  all 
of  which  he  was  denuded  in  rejecting  the  past,  and 
whatever  else  by  omission  simplified  him  and  made 
him  more  elementary  as  a  man,  suggests  the  more  his 
likeness  to  those  early  Greek  thinkers,  whom  he  often 
recalls,  who  were  not  dissimilarly  placed  with  respect 
to  old  religion  in  newly  colonized  lands  and  an  un- 
ecclesiastic  democracy,  and  who,  strangers  to  the  sci 
entific  intellect  and  the  historic  sense  alike,  first  gave 
out  physics  and  metaphysics  intertangled,  and  substi 
tuted  in  the  schools  the  myth  of  reason  for  the  myth 
of  old  faith.  At  all  events  it  is  necessary  to  recog 
nize  in  Emerson,  though  in  a  far  different  time  and 
place,  such  an  emancipator. 


CHAPTER  III 

"THE  HYPOCKITIC  DAYS" 

WHEN  Emerson  settled  in  Concord  in  the  house 
which  was  his  home  thereafter,  lying  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  village  and  not  far  from  woods  and  wild  pas 
ture,  he  found  himself  in  a  situation  well  adapted  to 
his  needs  and  was  perhaps  more  truly  among  his 
own  people  than  he  had  ever  been.  The  long  associ 
ation  of  his  family  with  the  town  and  his  frequent 
residence  there  had  made  him  acquainted  with  the 
community  almost  family  by  family ;  he  was  neither 
a  stranger  nor  among  strangers,  but  was  felt  by  all  to 
belong  there  as  one  of  themselves.  He  led  the  ordi 
nary  life  of  a  democratic  citizen,  interesting  himself  in 
his  neighbours  and  in  town  affairs;  notwithstanding  the 
unpopularity  of  his  opinions,  he  was  deeply  respected, 
and  on  the  few  occasions  when  any  annoyance  was 
directed  against  him,  it  was  obviated  by  his  friends  with 
out  any  intervention  of  his  own.  He  lectured  for  his 
fellow-citizens  at  least  once  every  year.  He  served  on 
the  board  of  the  School  Committee  and  of  the  Library, 
was  one  of  the  managers  of  the  Lyceum,  a  member  of 
the  Social  Circle,  and  on  all  proper  occasions  took  the 
public  part  of  a  leading  citizen  and  was  often  the 
spokesman  of  the  town.  He  attended  the  town-meet 
ing,  though  he  rarely  took  part  in  it.  He  liked  to 
meet  men  of  all  sorts  in  their  natural  pursuits  and 

64 


CHAP,  in.]         "THE   HYPOCRITIC  DAYS"  65 

occupations,  and  enjoyed  the  rough  reality  of  their  per 
sonalities  ;  he  observedthem  more  closely  than  was  real 
ized,  and  in  his  walks  or  in  the  stage-coach,  which  was 
then  the  means  of  communication  with  Boston,  or  in  his 
commonplace  contact  with  them  in  small  affairs,  he  had 
ample  opportunity  for  democratic  fraternalism.  He 
was,  however,  a  minister  and  a  scholar,  and  knew  and^ 
respected  the  barrier  thus  established  between  him 
and  them,  and  did  not  attempt  to  mix  with  them  famil 
iarly  ;  his  manners  of  themselves  would  have  forbade 
it.  He  was  not,  in  spite  of  this  respectful  distance, 
either  by  his  habits  or  his  interests,  remote  from 
the  townsmen,  like  a  hermit  or  an  aristocrat ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  was  naturally  keen  for  human  commu 
nication,  and  most  enjoyed  it  in  the  form  of  character 
rather  than  of  conversation.  He  was  always  interested 
in  the  business  of  men. 

His  life,  nevertheless,  was  not  in  their  sphere.  He 
spent  his  time  in  his  own  family  and  in  solitude.  He 
worked  in  the  morning  and  evening  in  his  study, 
together  from  eight  to  nine  hours  ;  in  the  afternoon 
he  took  a  walk  in  the  country.  He  often  preached  on 
Sunday  in  the  earlier  years,  and  he  gave  lectures  in 
Boston  and  in  neighbouring  places.  His  means  were 
straitened  in  comparison  with  his  necessary  ex 
penses,  and  he  lived  economically  as  well  as  plainly. 
He  gave  a  succinct  account  of  his  worldly  estate  to 
Carlyle,  in  a  letter,  May  10,  1838,  but  the  statement 
holds  good  for  a  period  of  years :  — 

"I  occupy,  or  improve,  as  we  Yankees  say,  two  acres 
only  of  God's  earth  ;  on  which  is  my  house,  my  kitchen-gar 
den,  my  orchard  of  thirty  young  trees,  my  empty  barn.  My 
house  is  now  a  very  good  one  for  comfort,  and  abounding  in 


66  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

room.  Besides  my  house,  I  have,  I  believe,  twenty-two  thou 
sand  dollars  whose  income  in  ordinary  years  is  six  per  cent.  I 
have  no  other  tithe  or  glebe  except  the  income  of  my  winter 
lectures,  which  was  last  winter  eight  hundred  dollars.  Well, 
with  this  income,  here  at  home,  I  am  a  rich  man.  I  stay 
at  home  and  go  abroad  at  my  own  instance.  I  have  food, 
warmth,  leisure,  books,  friends.  Go  away  from  home,  I  am 
rich  no  longer.  I  never  have  a  dollar  to  spend  on  a  fancy. 
As  no  wise  man,  I  suppose,  ever  was  rich  in  the  sense  of  free 
dom  to  spend,  because  of  the  inundation  of  claims,  so  neither 
ami,  who  am  not  wise.  But  at  home,  I  am  rich,  —  rich 
enough  for  ten  brothers.  My  wife  Lidian  is  an  incarnation 
of  Christianity,  —  I  call  her  Asia,  —  and  keeps  my  philos 
ophy  from  Antinomianism ;  my  mother,  whitest,  mildest, 
most  conservative  of  ladies,  whose  only  exception  to  her  uni 
versal  preference  for  old  things  is  her  son  ;  my  boy,  a  piece 
of  love  and  sunshine,  well  worth  my  watching  from  morning 
to  night ;  —  these,  and  three  domestic  women,  who  cook 
and  sew  and  run  for  us,  make  all  my  household.  Here  I 
sit  and  read  and  write,  with  very  little  system,  and,  as  far 
as  regards  composition,  with  the  most  fragmentary  result : 
paragraphs  incompressible,  each  sentence  an  infinitely  repel 
lent  particle." 

He  added  to  his  realty  by  the  purchase  of  adjoining 
land  until  his  estate  comprised  nine  acres,  and  he  also 
bought  a  considerable  wild  tract  of  wood  and  pasture 
by  Walden  Pond  where  he  liked  to  walk  and  meditate. 

Emerson's  position  in  the  eyes  of  the  larger  com 
munity  outside  is  fairly  described  by  James  Free 
man  Clarke :  "  The  majority  of  the  sensible,  practical 
community  regarded  him  as  mystical,  as  crazy  or  affected, 
or  as  an  imitator  of  Carlyle,  as  racked  and  revolution 
ary,  as  a  fool,  as  one  who  did  not  himself  know  what 
he  meant.  A  small  but  determined  minority,  chiefly 
composed  of  young  men  and  women,  admired  him  and 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  67 

believed  in  him,  took  him  for  their  guide,  teacher,  and 
master."  He  himself  feared  that  his  public  audiences 
would  diminish  at  his  lectures  in  Boston,  in  conse 
quence  of  the  obloquy  visited  upon  his  name  in  many 
quarters,  and  in  the  winter  after  the  Divinity  School 
Address  this  was  the  case.  In  private  he  was,  by 
general  consent  if  not  by  open  avowal,  the  centre  of 
thought  of  the  transcendentalism  then  active  and  ambi 
tious.  Its  chief  organization,  if  one  may  so  describe 
it,  was  the  Transcendental  Club,  which,  originating  in 
a  conversation  of  Emerson  and  some  of  his  friends  on 
the  occasion  of  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
founding  of  Harvard  College,  first  met  in  Boston  at  the 
home  of  Mr.  Kipley,  September  19, 1836,  and  afterward 
held  other  meetings  at  the  homes  of  its  members  in 
Boston  and  the  neighbouring  towns.  It  was  a  means 
of  assembling  the  stronger  and  more  ambitious  inquir 
ers  for  the  purpose  of  conversation  which  took  the 
form  of  monologue  rather  than  discussion,  one  speaker 
holding  forth  after  another,  according  to  the  half- 
humorous  accounts  that  have  come  down  concerning 
its  proceedings.  Its  members  were  very  respectable 
persons,  and  several  of  them  became  at  least  locally 
distinguished  in  later  life.  Emerson  was,  of  course, 
one  of  the  main  stays  of  this  friendly  association  and 
a  most  interested  listener. 

In  this  club,  or  in  the  sympathies  and  hopes  which 
there  found  cultivation,  originated  the  project  of  a 
periodical  publication  which  should  be  an  organ  of 
expression  for  all  the  free  thought  of  the  time  and  act 
upon  the  public  so  far  as  the  community  might  be  ac 
cessible  to  influence  in  this  way.  The  proposal  was 
long  considered  and  apparently  with  some  timidity 


68  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  lack  of  confidence  from  the  beginning.  The  re 
sult  was  the  publication  of  The  Dial  as  a  quarterly 
magazine  for  "  literature,  philosophy,  and  religion." 
The  first  number  was  issued  July,  1840,  and  its  precari 
ous  existence  was  maintained  until  April,  1844,  when 
it  expired.  Margaret  Fuller  was  the  literary  editor,  to 
whom  Emerson  acted  as  adviser ;  and  on  her  relin 
quishing  the  task  after  two  years,  he  became  sole 
editor.  The  magazine  brought  forward  some  new  au 
thors,  particularly  Thoreau,  who  there  found  his  first 
audience,  and  contained  much  of  Emerson's  and  of 
Margaret  Fuller's  writings  beside  contributions  from 
many  capable  pens.  It  was,  however,  intended  to  be 
an  organ  of  free  thought  in  a  very  generous  sense, 
and  the  general  effect  it  made  upon  its  few  readers 
was  disconcerting.  Emerson  himself  is  apologetic,  but 
prizes  it  as  an  expression  of  "  youthf  ulness  "  ;  Carlyle, 
who  described  it  well  enough  as  "  all  spirit-like,  aeri 
form,  aurora-borealis  like,"  bitted  himself  with  his  best 
manners  in  striving  to  make  polite  mention  of  receiv 
ing  it.  There  was  some  excellent  substance  in  it,  but 
this  was  lost  in  the  cloud  of  feebleness  which  befogged 
the  time.  The  Dial  may  be  said  to  survive  only  as 
one  of  the  curiosities  of  our  literature  and  on  account 
of  Emerson's  connection  with  it.  His  only  other 
association  with  a  periodical  was  as  the  writer  of  the 
opening  address  of  the  Massachusetts  Quarterly  in 
1847  ;  though  his  name  appeared  as  an  associate  editor 
upon  its  covers,  he  had  nothing  further  to  do  with  it, 
and  the  name  was  soon  withdrawn. 

Brook  Farm  was  another  experiment  which  had  its 
origin  in  the  Transcendental  Club.  Its  history  has 
been  elaborately  written.  It  was  an  attempt  to  or- 


m.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  69 

ganize  a  socialistic  group  in  the  community,  of  which 
elsewhere  there  were  other  examples,  and  was  espe 
cially  notable  because  of  the  men  afterward  of  distinc 
tion  who  were  associated  with  it.  Emerson  was  among 
those  who  were  first  consulted  by  the  founder,  Mr. 
Kipley,  and  gave  some  thought  to  it.  But  he  did  not 
vary  from  his  customary  rule  of  withholding  from 
association  with  any  particular  project  of  reform. 
He  did  not  object  to  the  practical  application  by 
others  of  theoretic  ideas,  and  even  made  some  experi 
ments  of  a  personal  sort  himself.  He  adopted  vege 
tarianism,  in  some  form,  or  at  least  a  novel  and 
Spartan  diet,  but  he  soon  gave  it  up ;  he  proposed  to 
have  only  one  table  at  his  home  at  which  the  servants 
should  also  eat,  but  he  was  saved  from  this  by  the  re 
fusal  of  the  cook ;  he  applied  himself  to  manual  labour, 
but  this  also  he  abandoned  as  a  folly  for  any  man  of 
mind.  He  found  himself  observant,  in  larger  matters, 
of  Fourierism  and  other  projects  of  social  reorganiza 
tion  ;  property  was  an  institution,  inherited  from  the 
past,  no  more  sacred  than  other  institutions,  and  there 
was  only  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  it  contained 
large  elements  of  injustice.  But  he  was  constitution 
ally  an  individualist,  and  incapable  of  allying  himself 
with  a  socialistic  scheme;  the  whole  action  of  his 
mind  was  against  such  an  organization.  He  indulged 
the  hypothesis  of  a  general  renovation  of  society ;  but 
his  objection  to  all  reform,  which  he  always  looked  at 
dubiously  in  the  concrete,  was  its  partial  and  particular 
nature.  He  dwelt  in  his  own  soul  and  truly  desired 
that  all  the  world  that  was  his  world  should  depend 
on  that.  "  It  would  please  me,"  he  wrote,  "  to  accept 
no  church,  school,  state,  or  society  which  did  not 


70  RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

found  itself  in  my  own  nature."  But  "this  rotten 
system  of  property"  was  only  a  part  of  a  more  far- 
reaching  corruption,  one  item  of  the  manifold  separa 
tion  of  life  from  the  inward  reality.  "  Diet,  medicine, 
traffic,  books,  social  intercourse,  and  all  the  rest  of 
our  practices  and  usages  are  equally  divorced  from 
ideas,  are  empirical  and  false."  He  could  do  his  work 
in  the  world  quite  as  well  in  his  own  Concord  house 
as  in  any  community  socialistically  organized;  nor 
did  the  ends  of  the  community,  essentially  economic 
ends,  appear  to  him  sufficiently  spiritual  in  essence. 
It  seemed  a  scheme  to  provide  comfort  and  conven 
ience  on  the  scale  of  a  large  hotel.  The  more  he 
thought  about  it,  the  less  he  liked  it.  He  consulted 
his  neighbour,  Farmer  Hosiner,  who  advised  him  that 
"gentleman-farming"  would  not  pay.  He  wrote  to 
Mr.  Ripley  and  declined  to  join  in  the  enterprise ;  but 
he  remained  an  interested  spectator  of  the  progress 
and  trials  of  the  group  from  its  beginning  in  1841  to 
its  end  in  1847. 

A  more  difficult  subject  to  meet  was  the  question  of 
Anti-Slavery.  Here  was  a  reform  upon  which  it  was 
necessary  for  every  thoughtful  citizen  to  take  sides. 
Emerson  was  not  unfamiliar  with  the  South ;  he  had 
roomed  with  a  Southerner  in  college,  and  he  had  jour 
neyed  in  slave-holding  states.  He  was  humane  and 
enlightened,  and  had  already  shown  his  disposition 
by  opening  his  church  to  Anti-Slavery  meetings  in  Bos 
ton;  and  at  the  time  of  the  visit  of  Harriet  Marti- 
neau,  in  1835,  he  had  befriended  her,  sustained  her 
cause,  and  received  her  in  his  home.  He  desired  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  and  in  private  and  as  an  individ 
ual  on  all  proper  occasions  he  spoke  out  in  defence 


in.]  "THE   IIYPOCRITIC  DAYS"  71 

of  the  negroes.  But  he  did  not  see  his  way  to  joining 
the  organization  for  abolition,  the  Anti-Slavery  Society. 
He  was  not  one  of  those  who  take  the  burden  of  the 
world  upon  their  shoulders ;  he  never  assumed  any 
responsibility  for  the  universe ;  he  was  content  to  do 
what  he  could  to  alleviate  life  in  his  neighbourhood ; 
but  in  the  presence  of  the  great  miseries  of  the  world 
he  was  dumb.  This  was,  in  part,  a  practical  view  and 
consonant  with  his  nature ;  he  carefully  guarded  the 
peculiarity  of  his  own  mind,  its  self-possession,  or 
absorption  in  its  own  ideas,  and  especially  the  one 
method  by  which  he  might  affect  the  world  as  a  writer 
by  announcing  the  infinitude  of  the  soul  in  its  moral 
nature ;  he  looked  to  the  total  regeneration  of  the  soul 
in  itself,  to  truth  as  a  general,  original,  and  unmodi 
fied  power,  not  to  particular  applied  measures  and 
special  remedies  for  the  ills  of  nature,  of  life,  or  of 
the  state.  He  exercised,  so  to  speak,  a  constant  inhi 
bition  of  the  particular  part  of  life  with  the  aim 
thereby  to  reconcentrate  force  in  the  unconfmed  soul 
which  is  the  source  and  master  of  all  life;  the  in 
crease  of  its  native  energy  was  more  important  than 
any  of  its  works.  To  preach  this  was,  he  thought, 
his  peculiar  business,  which  no  one  else  was  much 
concerned  about,  and  whatever  withdrew  him  from  it 
was  a  distraction,  enfeeblement,  and  loss. 

The  Anti-Slavery  movement,  however,  was  too  large 
a  part  of  the  social  and  political  life  of  the  nation  to 
allow  such  neglect  as  might  be  permitted  by  inferior 
causes.  It  came  home  to  men's  doors,  to  their  self- 
respect,  their  love  of  their  country,  their  sense  of  hu 
man  right  and  of  national  honour.  Emerson,  though 
slowly  and  in  a  sense  unwillingly,  took  a  part  increas- 


72  KALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

ing  in  activity  and  intensity  in  proportion  to  the 
growth  and  spread  of  the  agitation.  He  first  spoke 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  at  Concord  in  the  vestry  of 
the  Second  Church  in  November,  1837,  and  again  in 
the  Concord  Court  House,  August  1, 1844,  on  the  anni 
versary  of  the  liberation  of  the  slaves  in  the  British 
West  Indies,  and  a  year  later  on  the  same  anniversary 
at  Waltham.  He  took  part  in  public  meetings  at 
Concord,  January  26,  1845,  remonstrating  against  the 
expulsion  of  his  fellow-townsman,  Samuel  Hoar,  by  a 
mob  from  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  whither  he  had 
gone  as  the  accredited  representative  of  Massachu 
setts  to  protect  the  rights  of  her  negro  citizens,  and 
also,  September  22,  remonstrating  against  the  annexa 
tion  of  Texas.  On  May  3,  1851,  he  addressed  the 
citizens  of  Concord  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  he 
repeated  this  speech  on  several  occasions  on  the  stump 
in  the  campaign  for  his  Congressional  district,  meet 
ing  there  in  Cambridge  for  the  first  time  "  the  hisses, 
shouts,  and  cat-calls  "  of  politics.  On  March  7,  1854, 
he  made  an  address  in  New  York  on  the  same  subject, 
and  gave  a  new  lecture  on  slavery  in  January,  1855, 
in  Boston,  in  which  he  advocated  emancipation  by  the 
purchase  of  the  slaves  by  the  nation.  In  May,  1856, 
he  spoke  at  Concord  at  the  public  meeting  on  the 
occasion  of  the  assault  on  Sumner  in  the  Senate 
Chamber  at  Washington,  and  in  September  at  Cam 
bridge  in  behalf  of  the  arming  of  Kansas  settlers,  to 
which  cause  he  also  contributed  money.  In  1857  he 
received  John  Brown  in  his  house  at  Concord,  and  in 
his  lecture  in  Boston,  November  8,  1859,  when  Brown 
was  lying  under  sentence  of  death  in  Virginia,  he 
spoke  of  him  as  "that  new  saint  than  whom  none 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  73 

purer  or  more  brave  was  ever  led  by  love  of  man  into 
conflict  and.  death,  —  the  new  saint  awaiting  his  mar 
tyrdom,  and  who,  if  he  shall  suffer,  will  make  the 
gallows  glorious  like  the  cross."  The  words  were 
long  remembered.  He  took  part  in  several  Brown 
meetings  then  held  in  Boston  and  the  neighbourhood, 
and" 'it  was  in  connection  with  this  affair  that  he 
resembled  most  distinctly  an  agitator  with  the  zeal 
of  one.  He  had  been  known  as  a  Free-soiler  in  poli 
tics,  but  he  was  now  classed  by  public  opinion  with 
the  abolitionists.  The  last  occasion  on  which  he  was 
called  upon  to  appear  in  this  cause  was  at  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
January  24,  1861,  in  Boston;  he  rose  to  speak,  but 
he  was  howled  down  by  the  mob,  and  after  several 
attempts  withdrew. 

In  these  repeated  addresses  he  spoke  with  increas 
ing  force  and  decision,  and  when  stirred  he  was  gifted 
with  that  eloquence  that  goes  home  to  its  mark.  His 
denunciation  was  uncompromising,  as  when  he  said  of 
Webster,  whom  he  had  revered  from  boyish  days,  — 
"  All  the  drops  of  his  blood  have  eyes  that  look  down 
ward."  His  counsel  was  direct,  as  when  he  declared 
that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  "  is  a  law  which  every  one 
of  you  will  break  on  the  earliest  occasion, — a  law 
which  no  man  can  obey  or  abet  the  obeying  without 
loss  of  self-respect  and  forfeiture  of  the  name  of 
gentleman."  His  speeches  were  sown  with  sentences 
that  were  maxims,  —  "  He  who  writes  a  crime  into  the 
statute-book  digs  under  the  foundations  of  the  Capitol ; " 
and  with  sharp  appeals  that  stung  like  insults, — 
"The  famous  town  of  Boston  is  his  master's  hound." 
Perhaps  no  spoken  words  of  his  were  more  instant  in 


74  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

eloquent  effect  than  the  sentences  which  he  injected 
into  his  lecture  on  Heroism  at  Boston  in  the  early 
days  of  1838 ;  when  he  suddenly  said,  looking  up  from 
his  manuscript :  "  The  day  never  shines  in  which  this 
element  may  not  work.  ...  It  is  but  the  other  day  that 
the  brave  Lovejoy  gave  his  breast  to  the  bullets  of  a 
mob,  for  the  rights  of  free  speech  and  opinion,  and 
died  when  it  was  better  not  to  live.'7  In  that  quiet 
hall  the  sentence  rang  like  a  rifle-shot.  It  is,  however, 
useless  to  multiply  examples  of  his  quality  in  such  de 
bate.  His  civic  courage  was  flaivless,  and  he  was  never 
more  effective  as  a  speaker  than  in  handling  these  five 
topics.  He  did  not,  however,  associate  himself  much 
with  the  abolitionist  agitators,  for  the  ways  of  many 
of  whom  he  had  little  sympathy  and  still  less  for  their 
suggested  methods  of  political  action.  He  had  a  true 
and  profound  respect  for  Garrison  as  a  man,  and  per 
haps  he  was  least  contented,  taken  all  in  all,  with 
Wendell  Phillips.  His  letter  to  the  President  on  the 
removal  of  the  Cherokees  from  Georgia,  sent  April  18, 
1838,  and  his  welcome  to  Kossuth  at  Concord,  May  11, 
1852,  were  the  only  other  notable  civic  actions  of  this 
period.  It  is  in  his  conduct  as  an  opponent  of  slavery 
that  Emerson  revealed  his  height  as  a  citizen  and  par 
ticipant  in  the  public  affairs  of  his  generation. 

Emerson's  service  to  the  Anti-Slavery  cause  must 
be  gauged  by  the  inertia  of  his  reluctant  nature  which 
he  overcame  in  entering  on  the  active  strife.  He 
speaks  of  an  analogous  reluctance  in  lecturing,  which 
he  even  described  at  times  as  a  kind  of  "  charlatanry." 
He  meant  that  sense  of  an  accommodation  to  the  world 
which  is  inherent  in  all  action,  that  adaptation  of  truth 
to  time  and  place  and  the  minds  of  the  hearers,  all 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  75 

of  the  concession  there  is  in  popularizing  truth,  in 
seasoning  it  with  anecdote  and  allusion,  all  the  artifice 
there  is  in  the  handling  an  idea  persuasively  instead 
of  trusting  simply  to  its  pure  self,  and  also,  and 
perhaps  more  intimately,  the  sense  of  desecration  of 
the  truth  by  its  utterance  which  is  a  not  uncommon 
feeling  in  highly  intellectualized  and  aloof  natures  like 
his  own.  It  is  better  not  to  act,  but  to  contain  the 
soul;  it  is  better  not  to  speak,  but  to  refrain  the  word : 
this  is  the  mood  to  which  his  entire  philosophy  as  a 
spiritual  life  initiated  him ;  yet  what  he  remarks  of 
this  sort  is  to  be  lightly  taken.  In  another  part  of 
his  nature  he  liked  to  feel  himself  as  the  communi 
cator  of  truth;  he  liked,  too,  the  act  of  preaching, 
which  was  his  natural  office,  born  and  bred  in  him, 
exercised  and  breathed  by  him,  and  his  sole  outlet 
into  action ;  though  he  had  thrown  off  the  harness, 
he  liked  to  move  in  the  old  motions.  He  gradually 
abandoned  speaking  as  a  pulpit  preacher  and  confined, 
himself  to  the  platform;  but  he  never  ceased  to  be,  in, 
garb  and  manner,  the  preacher.  He  lectured  much  ; 
whatever  was  the  announced  subject  of  the  winter 
course  in  Boston,  the  substance  was  the  same ;  and, 
more  importantly,  the  man  was  the  same.  "  We  do 
not  go,"  wrote  Lowell,  "  to  hear  what  Emerson  says 
so  much  as  to  hear  Emerson."  His  account  of  the 
actual  scene  is  by  far  the  best :  — 

"  We  used  to  walk  in  from  the  country  to  the  Masonic 
Temple  (I  think  it  was),  through  the  crisp  winter  night,  and 
listen  to  that  thrilling  voice  of  his,  so  charged  with  subtle 
meaning  and  subtle  music,  as  shipwrecked  men  on  a  raft  to 
the  hail  of  a  ship  that  came  with  unhoped-for  food  and 
rescue.  Cynics  might  say  what  they  liked.  Did  our  own 


76  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

imaginations  transfigure  dry  remainder-biscuit  into  ambro 
sia  ?  At  any  rate,  he  brought  us  life,  which,  on  the  whole,  is 
no  bad  thing.  Was  it  all  transcendentalism  ?  magic-lantern 
pictures  on  mist?  As  you  will.  Those,  then,  were  just 
what  we  wanted.  But  it  was  not  so.  The  delight  and  the 
benefit  were  that  he  put  us  in  communication  with  a  larger 
style  of  thought,  sharpened  our  wits  with  a  more  pungent 
phrase,  gave  us  ravishing  glimpses  of  an  ideal  under  the 
dry  husk  of  our  New  England ;  made  us  conscious  of  the 
supreme  and  everlasting  originality  of  whatever  bit  of  soul 
might  be  in  any  of  us;  freed  us,  in  short,  from  the  stocks  of 
prose  in  which  we  had  sat  so  long  that  we  had  grown  well- 
nigh  contented  in  our  cramps.  And  who  that  saw  the  au 
dience  will  ever  forget  it,  where  every  one  still  capable  of 
fire,  or  longing  to  renew  in  himself  the  half- forgotten  sense 
of  it,  was  gathered?  Those  faces,  young  and  old,  agleam 
with  pale  intellectual  light,  eager  with  pleased  attention, 
flash  upon  me  once  more  from  the  deep  recesses  of  the  years 
with  an  exquisite  pathos.  Ah,  beautiful  young  eyes,  brim 
ming  with  love  and  hope,  wholly  vanished  now  in  that  other 
world  we  call  the  Past,  or  peering  doubtfully  through  the 
pensive  gloaming  of  memory,  your  light  impoverishes  these 
cheaper  days  !  I  hear  again  that  rustle  of  sensation,  as  they 
turned  to  exchange  glances  over  some  pithier  thought,  some 
keener  flash  of  that  humor  which  always  played  about  the 
horizon  of  his  mind  like  heat-lightning,  and  it  seems  now 
like  the  sad  whisper  of  the  autumn  leaves  that  are  whirling 
around  me. 

"...  To  some  of  us  that  long-past  experience  remains  as 
the  most  marvellous  and  fruitful  we  have  ever  had.  Emer 
son  awakened  us,  saved  us  from  the  body  of  this  death.  It 
is  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  that  the  young  soul  longs  for, 
careless  what  breath  may  fill  it.  Sidney  heard  it  in  the 
ballad  of  Chevy  Chase  and  we  in  Emerson.  Nor  did  it 
blow  retreat,  but  called  to  us  with  assurance  of  victory.  Did 
they  say  he  was  disconnected?  So  were  the  stars,  that 
seemed  larger  to  our  eyes,  still  keen  with  that  excitement,  as 
we  walked  homeward  with  prouder  stride  over  the  creaking 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  77 

snow.  And  were  they  not  knit  together  by  a  higher  logic 
than  our  mere  sense  could  master?  Were  we  enthusiasts? 
I  hope  and  believe  we  were,  and  am  thankful  to  the  man 
who  made  us  worth  something  for  once  in  our  lives.  If 
asked  what  was  left?  what  we  carried  home?  we  should 
not  have  been  careful  for  an  answer.  It  would  have  been 
enough  if  we  had  said  that  something  beautiful  had  passed 
that  way.  Or  we  might  have  asked  in  return  what  one 
brought  away  from  a  symphony  of  Beethoven  ?  Enough 
that  he  had  set  that  ferment  of  wholesome  discontent  at 
work  in  us. 

"...  I  have  heard  some  great  speakers  and  some  ac 
complished  orators,  but  never  any  that  so  moved  and  per 
suaded  men  as  he.  There  is  a  kind  of  undertow  in  that  rich 
baritone  of  his  that  sweeps  our  minds  from  their  foothold 
into  deeper  waters  with  a  drift  we  cannot  and  would  not 
resist.  And  how  artfully  (for  Emerson  is  a  long-studied 
artist  in  these  things)  does  the  deliberate  utterance,  that 
seems  waiting  for  the  fit  word,  appear  to  admit  us  partners 
in  .the  labor  of  thought  and  make  us  feel  as  if  the  glance  of 
humor  were  a  sudden  suggestion,  as  if  the  perfect  phrase 
lying  written  there  on  the  desk  were  as  unexpected  to  him 
as  to  us.  In  that  closely  filed  speech  of  his  at  the  Burns 
centenary  dinner,  every  word  seemed  to  have  just  dropped 
down  to  him  from  the  clouds.  He  looked  far  away  over  the 
heads  of  his  hearers,  with  a  vague  kind  of  expectation, 
as  into  some  private  heaven  of  invention,  and  the 
winged  period  came  at  last  obedient  to  his  spell.  '  My 
dainty  Ariel ! '  he  seemed  murmuring  to  himself  as  he  cast 
down  his  eyes  as  if  in  deprecation  of  the  frenzy  of  approval 
and  caught  another  sentence  from  the  Sibylline  leaves  that 
lay  before  him,  ambushed  behind  a  dish  of  fruit  and  seen 
only  by  nearest  neighbors.  Every  sentence  brought  down 
the  house,  as  I  never  saw  one  brought  down  before,  —  and 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  hit  Scotsmen  with  a  sentiment  that  has 
no  hint  of  native  brogue  in  it.  I  watched,  for  it  was  an 
interesting  study,  how  the  quick  sympathy  ran  flashing  from 
face  to  face  down  the  long  tables,  like  an  electric  spark 
thrilling  as  it  went,  and  then  exploded  in  a  thunder  of 


78  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

plaudits.  I  watched  till  tables  and  faces  vanished,  for  I,  too, 
found  myself  caught  up  in  the  common  enthusiasm,  and  my 
excited  fancy  set  me  under  the  bema  listening  to  him  who 
fulmined  over  Greece.  I  can  never  help  applying  to  him 
what  Ben  Jonson  said  of  Bacon  :  l  There  happened  in  my 
time  one  noble  speaker,  who  was  full  of  gravity  in  his 
speaking.  His  language  was  nobly  censorious.  No  man 
ever  spake  more  neatly,  more  pressly,  more  weightily,  or 
suffered  less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in  what  he  uttered. 
No  member  of  his  speech  but  consisted  of  his  own  graces. 
His  hearers  could  not  cough,  or  look  aside  from  him,  without 
loss.  He  commanded  where  he  spoke.'  " 

Another  view  is  given  by  Willis  from  a  different 
angle,  and  completes  the  picture :  — 

"Emerson's  voice  is  up  to  his  reputation.  It  has  a  curi 
ous  contradiction  in  it  which  we  tried  in  vain  to  analyze 
satisfactorily.  But  it  is  noble,  altogether.  And  what  seems 
strange  is  to  hear  such  a  voice  proceeding  from  such  a  body. 
It  is  a  voice  with  shoulders  in  it,  which  he  has  not ;  with 
lungs  in  it  far  larger  than  his ;  with  a  walk  which  the 
public  never  see ;  with  a  fist  in  it  which  his  own  hand 
never  gave  him  the  model  for ;  and  with  a  gentleman  in  it 
which  his  parochial  and  '  bare-necessaries-of-life '  sort  of 
exterior  gives  no  other  betrayal  of.  We  can  imagine  noth 
ing  in  nature  (which  seems  too  to  have  a  type  for  everything) 
like  the  want  of  correspondence  between  the  Emerson  that 
goes  in  at  the  eye  and  the  Emerson  that  goes  in  at  the 
ear.  .  .  .  Indeed  (to  use  one  of  his  own  similitudes),  his 
body  seems  '  never  to  have  broken  the  umbilical  cord  '  which 
held  it  to  Boston ;  while  his  soul  has  sprung  to  the  adult 
stature  of  a  child  of  the  universe,  and  his  voice  is  the 
utterance  of  the  soul  only." 

This  recalls  Alcott's  remark  that  some  of  Emerson's 
"  organs  were  free,  some  fated ;  the  voice  was  entirely 
liberated."  It  was,  says  his  son,  "  agreeable,  flexible, 
and  varied,  with  power  unexpected  from  a  man  of  his 


in.]  "THE    HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  79 

slender  chest."  Its  effect  was  supplemented,  however, 
by  the  tranquil  decorum  of  the  speaker,  by  the  power 
of  his  large-featured  face,  and  the  light  of  the  spirit 
that  shone  from  the  serene  and  expressive  counte 
nance  ;  moreover,  he  had  high-bred  manners  at  all 
times,  and  solemnity. 

He  was  more  sought  for  as  the  years  passed  on,  and 
after  1850  he  was  accustomed  to  make  a  journey  to 
the  West  each  year,  lecturing  in  the  lyeeurns  there. 
These  journeys  were  fatiguing  and  abounded  in  hard 
ships  of  travel,  in  exposure  to  cold  and  storm  and  in 
conveniences  of  lodging.  He  did  not  complain,  but 
made  the  best  of  rude  conditions,  and  returned  better 
in  health  after  each  expedition.  He  crossed  the 
Mississippi  several  times  on  the  ice,  on  foot  or  partly 
by  boat,  as  the  case  might  be,  and  he  had  long  drives 
on  the  prairie  in  snow  and  mud,  and  adventures  in 
canal  boats  and  taverns.  His  love  of  the  primitive  was 
appealed  to  by  this  contact  with  weather  and  char 
acter,  and  an  appreciation  of  the  West  was  formed  in 
him  such  as  no  other  man  of  letters  possessed  ;  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  the  broad  American  strain  in 
his  writings,  which  distinguishes  them,  owed  much  to 
this  development  by  repeated  contact  through  a  series 
of  years  with  hard  and  raw  conditions,  and  the  race 
•growing  up  in  them.  The  fact  that  he  found  an 
audience  in  these  then  somewhat  remote  places  illus 
trates  the  mode  by  which  the  New  England  spirit 
penetrated  the  West.  He  was  received,  it  would  ap 
pear,  in  much  the  same  mixed  way  there  as  in  the 
East,  with  a  limited  enthusiasm,  an  awakened  interest 
and  curiosity,  and  also  with  some  vague  astonishment 
of  mind  and  dubious  listening.  For  the  growth  of  his 


80  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

reputation  at  large  in  the  country  and  for  the  infiltra 
tion  of  his  thought  into  liberal  and  intelligent  minds 
these  lecturing  tours  were  of  the  first  consequence, 
and  it  was  rather  by  the  spoken  than  the  written  word 
that  he  first  gained  the  attention  of  his  countrymen. 
He  continued  to  lecture  regularly  until  after  the  Civil 
War;  it  was  his  means  of  earning,  and  the  active 
period  of  such  influence  extended  over  forty  years. 

The  various  public  employments  of  Emerson  con 
stituted  his  external  life  which  was  filled  with  inter 
esting  action,  keeping  him  in  unbroken  contact  with 
affairs  and  men.  It  may  be  said  that  nearly  every 
eminent  nian  of  his  neighbourhood  and  generation  was 
his  respectful  friend,  and  in  his  study  at  Concord  the 
higher  interests  of  society  were  often  in  play.  Yet  in 
the  midst  of  all  this  he  led  a  private  life,  altogether 
his  own,  in  the  family  about  him,  which  he  most 
valued.  Here  he  was  at  home,  and  here  also  he  was 
in  that  solitude  which  was,  to  his  eyes  and  in  his 
heart,  the  place  of  his  genius.  It  is  only  at  Concord 
that  one  obtains  a  near  and  private  view  of  him,  and 
it  is  given  principally  by  the  recollections  of  his  son. 
His  mother  lived  with  him  for  eighteen  years  until 
,her  death,  and  her  room,  where  the  children  went  for 
their  Bible  readings  on  Sunday,  was  a  chamber  of 
peace.  Besides  the  firstborn  son,  there  were  another 
son  and  two  daughters ;  but  the  eldest  died  at  the 
age  of  five  years.  He  was  a  beautiful  child,  with 
dark  blue  eyes  and  long  lashes,  and  would  stay  si 
lently  in  his  father's  study  for  hours.  He  was  pecul 
iarly  dear  to  Emerson,  and  the  loss  was  a  great  grief. 
Miss  Alcott's  first  memory  of  him  was  on  the  occasion 
of  the  boy's  death :  — 


m.]  "THE    HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  81 

"  My  first  remembrance  is  of  the  morning  when  T  was  sent 
to  inquire  for  little  Waldo,  then  lying  very  ill.  His  father 
came  to  me,  so  worn  with  watching  and  changed  by  sorrow, 
that  I  was  startled,  and  could  only  stammer  out  my  mes 
sage.  'Child,  he  is  dead  ! '  was  his  answer.  Then  the  door 
closed,  and  I  ran  home  to  tell  the  sad  tidings.  I  was  only 
eight  years  old,  and  that  was  my  first  glimpse  of  a  great 
grief,  but  I  never  have  forgotten  the  anguish  that  made  a 
familiar  face  so  tragical,  and  gave  those  few  words  more 
pathos  than  the  sweet  lamentation  of  the  Threnody." 

Emerson,  however,  after  the  bereavement,  passed 
into  a  state  of  resignation  with  respect  to  it,  in  which 
the  mysteriousness  of  the  event  was  the  abiding  trait, 
so  that  he  used  in  a  lecture  these  words  about  it : 
"  Grief,  too,  will  make  us  idealists.  In  the  death  of- 
my  son,  now  more  than  two  years  ago,  I  seem  to  have 
lost  a  beautiful  estate,  —  no  more.  I  cannot  get  it 
nearer  to  me."  He  means  that  his  own  soul  has  suf 
fered  no  loss,  as  if  it  were  his  own  "  eternal  part " 
that  was  made  plain  to  him  in  the  experience.  His 
natural  grief  was  not  the  less,  and  indeed  this 
seems  to  have  been  the  greatest  shock  that  life  gave 
him.  He  was  fond  of  children,  and  inexpert  with 
his  hands  in  other  ways  was  skilful  in  handling 
babies;  he  liked  the  company  of  the  young  always, 
and  drew  no  line  of  age  or  of  intelligence  in  their  case. 
As  his  own  children  grew  up,  he  gave  unusual  atten 
tion  to  them  and  made  them  companions,  and  was  not 
only  firm  but  thoughtful  in  discipline,  using  ways  of 
avoidance  and  prevention  before  trouble  came  or  dis 
sipating  it  by  turning  the  channel  of  attention  with 
something  like  a  woman's  tact.  He  took  interest  in 
their  games  and  studies  and  affairs,  and  was  their  con 
fidant  ;  and  if  he  bred  them  seriously,  it  was  with 


82  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

much  liberality.  He  required  of  his  son,  for  example, 
regular  reading  of  Plutarch's  Lives,  and  he  discour 
aged  morning  idleness  even  on  holidays.  He  repressed 
light  conversation  even  on  their  childish  romances  of 
boy  and  girl,  and  especially  on  the  subject  of  death, 
and  ill  nature  or  silliness  was  rebuked  or  frowned  upon. 
He  did  not  romp  with  them,  but  he  took  them  to  walk, 
especially  on  Sunday  afternoons,  when  he  came  into 
the  room  at  four  o'clock  and  whistled  or  spoke  as  a 
signal ;  and  then  all  would  go  out  into  the  fields  and 
woods,  where  he  would  show  them  the  first  flowers  or 
repeat  old  ballads  or  amuse  them  in  other  ways.  He 
liked  them  to  go  to  church,  and  they  were  taught 
hymns  as  he  had  been ;  they  were  allowed  on  Sunday 
to  stroll  by  themselves  and  to  read  and  even  to  go 
bathing  in  Walden  ;  but  not  to  play  games,  to  have 
toys,  or  to  drive  or  row.  He  disliked  card-playing  at 
all  times.  When  they  grew  to  be  thirteen  or  fourteen, 
he  allowed  them  much  latitude  in  their  own  affairs, 
and  developed  their  initiation  and  responsibility.  He 
had  their  companions  into  the  house  for  parties,  was 
anxious  that  all  should  come,  and  interested  himself 
in  their  entertainment.  It  is  plain  that  children  were 
the  light  of  the  house. 

He  was  himself  in  these  years  of  maturity  usually  in 
good  health,  though  he  had  somewhat  the  temperament 
of  a  valitudinarian,  owing  to  his  invalidism  in  younger 
days,  and  he  perhaps  underrated  his  physical  strength 
and  consequently  indulged  the  more  his  rambling  and 
country  habits  ;  he  did  not  overtax  himself.  He  had 
a  horror  of  invalidism,  and  would  never  permit  talk 
about  sickness.  His  son  thus  describes  him  in  these 
years  :  "  Mr.  Emerson  was  tall,  —  six  feet  in  his 


in.]  "THE    HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  83 

shoes,  —  erect  until  his  latter  days,  neither  very  thin 
nor  stout  in  frame,  with  rather  narrow  and  unusually 
sloping  shoulders,  and  long  neck,  but  very  well-poised 
head,  and  a  dignity  of  carriage.  His  eyes  were  very 
blue,  his  hair  dark  brown,  his  complexion  clear  and 
always  with  good  colour.  His  features  were  pro 
nounced,  but  refined,  and  his  face  very  much  modelled, 
as  a  sculptor  would  say."  The  portraits  of  him  show 
the  general  character  of  his  face  excellently.  His 
manner  of  address  was  courteous,  in  the  old  sense, 
and  hesitating,  which  Hawthorne  best  struck  off, — 
"and  he  so  quiet,  so  simple,  so  without  pretension, 
encountering  each  man  alive  as  if  expecting  to  receive 
more  than  he  would  impart."  It  was  a  sincere  attitude, 
for  nothing  was  more  characteristic  of  him,  as  Dr. 
Furness  tells  it,  than  "  the  eagerness  and  delight  with 
which  he  magnified  the  slightest  appearance  of  any 
thing  like  talent  or  genius  or  good  that  he  happened 
to  discover,  or  that  he  fancied  he  discovered  in  an 
other."  In  demeanour  he  was  always  reserved,  as  he 
had  been  in  boyhood,  and  he  disliked  to  have  this 
habit,  which  was  a  state  rather  than  a  mask,  at  all 
shaken.  He  complained  that  Margaret  Fuller  made 
him  laugh  too  much.  He  never  laughed  aloud,  but  the 
suppressed  commotion  of  his  lungs  and  face  on  being 
affected  with  laughter  has  often  been  humorously  and 
vividly  portrayed.  He  had  hidden  humour,  which  is 
apt  to  take  the  form  of  irony  in  writing,  and  he  was 
amused  in  secret  over  many  things ;  in  his  family  he 
would  joke  after  a  scriptural  fashion  by  perverse 
quotation  of  Bible  texts,  and  he  is  said  to  have  en 
joyed  the  parody  of  his  poem  Bramah,  that  was 
then  current.  It  was  a  clerical  and  Yankee  humour 


84  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

that  he  had,  and  was  not  allowed  to  encroach  upon  the 
day;  and,  besides,  there  is  much  silence  in  Yankee 
humour  of  the  true  breed.  He  was  not  fond  of  pictures, 
and  enjoyed  design  more  than  colour.  He  had  no  ear 
for  music,  and  could  not  distinguish  simple  tunes  from 
one  another,  though  he  enjoyed  singing  in  a  moderate 
degree.  He  did  not  care  for  garden  flowers,  and  if  he 
brought  home  flowers  from  the  woods  he  did  not  fur 
ther  notice  them  or  what  was  done  with  them.  In 
outdoor  habits  he  still  skated  in  winter  and  swam  in 
Walden  on  hot  days  in  summer;  he  did  not  ride  horse 
back,  though  he  could  do  so,  and  he  did  not  enjoy 
driving,  but  on  going  to  preach  in  the  neighbourhood 
he  generally  drove  himself.  He  preferred  walking 
even  between  stations  in  the  city,  and  would  stride  away, 
alert  and  swift,  carrying  his  own  bag.  He  had  coun 
try  habits  of  self-dependence,  and  held  to  them  with 
tenacity  and  simplicity  as  the  natural  way  of  living. 
He  once  bought  a  rifle,  and  learned  to  shoot  with  it  in 
the  Adirondacks,  but  did  not  shoot  at  any  living  thing. 
Indoors  there  was  ancient  simplicity,  plain  fare,  which 
he  seldom  noticed,  or  if  he  did  so,  only  for  a  word  of 
thanksgiving ;  not  suffering  further  comment  or  any 
talk  of  it ;  he  did  not  drink  wine  habitually,  but  he 
offered  it  to  guests,  and  on  such  occasions  took  one 
glass ;  he  smoked  very  moderately,  but  only  after  fifty, 
though  he  had  learned  to  smoke  at  college.  He  was 
very  kind  to  his  servants  and  considerate  of  them. 
He  rose  at  six  and  retired  at  ten,  but  he  was  able  to 
keep  later  hours  with  visitors  and  suffered  no  incon 
venience  from  it.  In  business  he  was  not  shrewd. 
"  He  had  no  business  faculty,"  says  his  son,  "  or  even 
ordinary  skill  in  figures ;  could  only  with  the  greatest 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  86 

difficulty  be  made  to  understand  an  account."  He 
found  it  to  his  advantage  finally  to  allow  a  commer 
cial  friend  to  attend  even  to  his  arrangements  with 
his  publishers,  and  in  the  management  of  his  property 
he  had  relied  previously  on  the  counsel  of  another 
elder  and  lifelong  friend,  the  staunchest,  perhaps,  of 
all  at  that  time,  his  parishioner,  Mr.  Abel  Adams. 

The  mode  of  his  dealing  with  books  was  one  of  his 
most  characteristic  and  interesting  traits.  He  was  a 
reader,  but  not  a  student  of  books ;  a  writer,  not  a 
scholar.  He  held  the  opinion  that  a  man  who  writes 
must  abandon  reading  in  the  scholastic  sense.  His 
command  of  foreign  languages  was  inconsiderable. 
He  had  that  tincture  of  Latin  and  Greek  that  Har 
vard  in  those  days  of  ineffective  classical  instruction 
gave ;  but  he  never  read  either  language  at  home, 
though  he  seems  to  have  tried  occasionally  a  Latin 
author  on  a  journey,  —  Martial  or  a  treatise  of  Cicero. 
He  read  German,  and  accomplished  the  perusal  of 
Goethe's  entire  works  as  a  task  and  partly  out  of  re 
spect  to  Carlyle's  judgment;  but  he  used  the  language 
comparatively  little  and  had  no  first-hand  acquaint 
ance  with  German  philosophy.  He  also  read  French, 
Sainte-Beuve  and  George  Sand,  for  example,  but  he  did 
not  care  for  the  language  or  its  literature.  He  was, 
in  fact,  for  all  practical  purposes,  an  English  reader 
and  used  translations  in  making  acquaintance  with 
his  most  revered  authors,  Plato  and  the  Neo-Plato- 
nists,  Plutarch,  Montaigne,  and  others,  whenever  an 
English  version  was  available.  He  read  two  kinds  of 
books :  biography,  anecdotes,  and  certain  kinds  of 
travel  and  science,  which  satisfied  his  taste  for  the 
expression  of  character  and  manners,  and  also  fur- 


86  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

nished  him  with  particular  illustrations  of  life,  and,  in 
the  case  of  science,  examples  of  law,  which  were  useful 
in  lectures  ;  and  secondly,  books  of  philosophy  and  old 
religion,  generally  mystical,  which  stimulated  his  mind 
and  affected  him  as  he  says  Alcott's  conversation  did, 
during  which  he  listened  to  his  own  thoughts  instead 
of  his  friend's ;  he  used  them  to  tone  his  mind,  as  Gray 
read  Spenser  before  composing.  He  was  also  preoc 
cupied,  in  reading,  with  style  or  expression,  had  an 
eye  to  the  good  sentences  and  noted  down  numberless 
quotations  which  he  kept  in  a  book  as  a  treasury  for 
use.  He  was  strictly  independent  in  his  preferences 
and  estimates.  "  He  could  see  nothing,"  says  his 
confidential  biographer,  Mr.  Cabot,  "  in  Shelley,  Aris 
tophanes,  Don  Quixote,  Miss  Austen,  Dickens ; "  per 
haps  his  characterization  of  Dante  as  "  another  Zerah 
Colburn"  is  the  most  lucid  instance  of  his  mental 
ineptitude ;  but  non-conductivity  was  a  large  element 
in  his  make-up,  in  general,  and  in  these  examples  of 
limited  sympathy  and  understanding  the  confined 
character  of  his  culture  is  manifest.  He  was  no  more 
rich  in  critical  faculty  than  in  scientific  intellect  and 
the  historical  sense.  He  was,  in  facty  singularly  in 
dependent  of  books,  and  indifferent  to  knowledge  as 
such,  but  valued  them  as  one,  though  an  inferior, 
source  of  the  power  to  live.  His  maxim,  "Expres 
sion  is  what  we  want ;  not  knowledge,  but  vent,"  sum 
marizes  his  point  of  view  and  implies  his  method. 
His  reading  was  wide,  but  not  deep,  desultory  but  not 
catholic,  strange  but  not  learned,  and  reflected  the 
idiosyncrasy  of  his  character  so  perfectly  that,  hardly 
less  than  his  writings,  it  is  a  mode  of  his  self-portrayal 
and  stamped  with  reality.  One  follows  him  into  the 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  87 

books  he  read,  not  for  the  sources  of  his  thought,  but 
for  the  mould  of  the  man  himself. 

In  the  correlative  part  of  a  writer's  life,  composi 
tion,  the  state  of  Emerson  is  as  plain.  He  composed 
out-of-doors  in  the  woods  and  pastures,  where  he  loved 
to  ramble,  and  since  his  early  days  of  self-protective 
indolence  at  Cambridge  in  the  life  at  Divinity  Hall 
he  had  carefully  preserved  these  country  habits. 
"  Wherever  I  go,"  he  wrote  on  first  settling  at  Con 
cord,  "I  guard  and  study  my  rambling  propensities 
with  a  care  that  is  ridiculous  to  people,  but  to  me  is 
the  care  of  my  high  calling."  He  was  town-bred,  and 
the  love  of  the  country  came  to  him  truly  only  in  early 
manhood,  but  for  this  reason  it  had  a  freshness  and 
wholeness  and  was  self-conscious  to  a  degree  that  gave 
it  a  value  somewhat  out  of  the  ordinary.  He  rejoiced 
in  Walden  and  the  adjacent  rough  fields  and  meadows 
as  in  a  forest  paradise.  His  senses  opened  to  it,— 
"  the  moist,  warm,  glittering,  budding,  and  melodious 
hour,"  and  he  came  to  know  the  country  in  every 
mood  of  weather,  landscape,  and  horizon,  in  its  great 
lines  and  in  its  detail  homely  but  dear,  and  abounding 
in  changeful  beauty,  the  harsh  New  England  land. 
Anemone  and  chipmunk,  titmouse  and  rhodora,  black 
ice  and  starlight,  he  knew  and  loved  them  all,  and 
was,  almost  more  than  Thoreau,  a  forest  citizen.  He 
was  greatly  pleased  to  have  Indians  and  gypsies  use 
his  land.  He  liked  to  work,  too,  in  his  garden  and 
orchard,  to  prune  trees  and  think  about  pears  and 
gather  brushwood ;  but  he  was  inexpert  with  all  tools, 
and  made  but  an  awkward  farmer ;  gradually  his  par 
ticipation  became  less  active,  and  there  were  friendly 
hands  to  relieve  him  of  the  care  while  preserving  his 


88  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

enjoyment.  He  was  less  interested  in  animals,  though 
he  could  catch  a  horse  with  an  ear  of  corn ;  and  he 
never  had  any  pets.  The  daily  life  of  the  garden  and 
fields  about  the  house  was  always  a  pleasure  and  re 
source  to  him ;  but  it  was  the  larger  and  wilder  estate 
near  Walden  that  was  more  peculiarly  his  "  garden," 
where  he  found  the  thoughts  that  he  brought  home 
with  him. 

His  own  attitude  in  this  out-of-doors  study  is  well 
described  in  his  declaration,  —  "I  would  not  degrade 
myself  by  casting  about  for  a  thought  nor  by  waiting 
for  one."  Receptivity  was  the  prime  condition  for 
this  mode  of  thinking;  volition  would  be  an  imper 
tinence  ;  the  thoughts  came,  as  lyrics  are  popularly 
supposed  to  come,  and  arrived  in  what  form  and  on 
what  topic  might  please  themselves.  It  was  inspira 
tion  put  into  practice;  the  product  was  pensees, — 
thought-crystals,  as  it  were,  each  formed  spontaneously 
by  its  own  unaided  law.  Emerson  remembered  them, 
turned  them  over  in  his  mind  until  perhaps  they  came 
again  in  a  more  fit  and  beautiful  form  of  expression, 
and  he  preserved  them  in  his  journals  to  write  which 
was  his  daily  task.  When  there  was  question  of  a 
lecture,  he  sifted  out  of  these  journals  thoughts  on  the 
selected  theme  or  cognate  with  it,  and  casting  them 
into  paragraphs  made  up  a  whole.  Two  forms  of  com 
position  were  involved  in  the  process:  the  sentence, 
which  has  been  rightly  termed  the  literary  unit  of  his 
style;  and  the  sermon,  or  frame  of  the  discourse,  loosely 
conceived  as  a  series  of  headings,  under  each  of  which 
there  might  be  an  effusion  of  thought.  Emerson's 
constructive  art  in  prose  was  limited  to  this  simple 
combination  of  the  minister's  old  pulpit  sermon  and 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC  DAYS"  89 

the  man-of-letters'  pensee.  The  essay  was  aii  identical 
form  with  the  lecture,  but  made  up  by  a  selection 
from  old  lectures  as  well  as  the  journals,  and  repre 
sented  the  originals  in  a  thrice  and  four  times  sifted 
form,  the  best  thought  and  the  best  expression;  the 
last  result  and  quintessence  of  his  mind.  The  seed- 
field  of  all,  however,  was  the  wild  land  he  wandered 
over;  and  if  Alcott  thought  that  Emerson's  essays 
were  not  properly  published  till  he  read  them  with 
his  own  voice,  Emerson  himself  would  not  have 
found  the  expression  adequate  till  they  were  heard  in 
the  natural  scenes  which  had  generated  them.  His 
conviction  of  the  union  of  his  thought  with  nature 
sounds  mystical ;  but,  like  his  practice  of  inspiration, 
it  represents  a  very  real  fact  in  his  psychology  and  in 
his  act  of  thought ;  both  denote  a  peculiarity  in  his 
mental  process.  For  him,  all  thought  carried  its 
environment  with  it,  as  poetic  thought  carries  its 
imagery,  and  was  equally  inseparable  therefrom  ;  and 
he  restricted  the  original  action  of  his  mind  as  purely 
as  possible  to  its  unconscious  operation:  these  are  the 
practical  facts,  though  in  Emerson's  mind  they  had 
an  aura  of  mysticism.  He  interpreted  this  process  of 
spontaneous  suggestion  in  the  environment  of  the  wild 
as  a  transmutation  of  nature  herself,  and  believed 
that  the  resulting  thought,  so  far  as  it  was  pure  and 
unmixed  with  volition,  was  one,  as  he  would  say,  with 
the  harmonies  of  the  stars  and  the  secrets  of  the  deep; 
he  maintained,  therefore,  jealously  his  nearness  and 
openness  to  nature  and  his  waiting  mood,  and  valued, 
far  more  than  persons  or  books,  this  wild-wood  cell 
where  his  soul  found  illumination.  In  the  quality  of 
the  action,  however,  b}T  which  he  thus  fed  his  genius, 


90  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

he  was  not  so  different  from  other  poets ;  for  mental 
processes  are  much  the  same,  however  explanations 
may  vary.  What  was  more  peculiar  to  him  was  that 
he  made  a  semi-religious  rite  of  it,  and  limited  him 
self  to  the  mood  and  shut  himself  up  in  it  as  the  true 
path,  with  unconcern  for  other  ways  of  reason,  as  if 
he  had  been  the  founder  of  a  nature-sect  in  some  Ti 
betan  world.  It  is  useful  to  observe,  too,  that  just  as 
to  his  rejection  of  past  learning  there  corresponded  a 
mental  indisposition  for  scholarship,  so  in  his  wait 
ing  on  nature  may  be  discerned  the  obverse  of  his  per 
sonal  liking  for  aimless  strolling  and  forest  idleness 
often  characteristic  of  the  poetic  temperament;  for 
whatever  Emerson  was,  he  was  constitutionally. 

This  is  seen  also  in  his  friendships.  It  is  in  this  part 
of  his  life,  perhaps,  that  it  is  most  difficult  to  show 
the  facts  with  justice.  Emerson  himself  by  his  fre 
quent  lamentation  over  his  social  defects,  which  his 
son  says  he  exaggerated,  has  made  the  way  easy  to  rep 
resent  him  as  an  unsocial  person.  He  certainly  seemed, 
even  to  his  contemporaries,  hedged  about  with  something 
of  saintship,  not  that  he  was  thought  to  be  at  all  a  sacred 
person,  but  his  presence  diffused  a  certain  grave  respect, 
enforced  distance,  and  imposed  itself  upon  others ;  he 
carried  with  him  by  the  formality  of  his  manner  and 
his  general  inheritance  the  atmosphere  of  a  Puritan 
minister  of  the  old  time.  He  was  physically  inacces 
sible.  "What  man  was  he,"  says  Dr.  Holmes,  awho 
would  lay  his  hand  familiarly  upon  his  shoulder?" 
No  one  seems  ever  to  have  spoken  to  him  in  a  natural 
tone  of  voice  except  his  brothers.  He  was  never  sur 
prised  in  an  act  of  intimacy ;  no  biographer  or  writer 
of  reminiscences  records  such  a  thing.  He  was,  upon 


in.]  "THE    HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  91 

the  other  hand,  anxious  to  communicate  himself,  and 
felt  grievously  his  incapacity;  but  he  could  not  give 
himself,  he  could  not  even  impart  himself ;  when  he 
attempted  it,  he  says,  dumbness  and  palsy  fell  upon 
him.  He  disliked  even  to  visit,  because  of  his  failure 
as  a  guest.  As  to  friendship,  he  conceived  of  it  as  a 
holy  state,  like  matrimony,  a  function  of  divine  souls ; 
he  derived  this  view  from  Plato,  and  in  his  writing  on 
friendship  he  platonizes  most :  here  is  the  point,  per 
haps,  where  he  for  once  depended  more  on  the  book 
than  on  experience  and  allowed  his  thoughts  to  be 
dominated  by  a  literary  tradition.  In  practice,  he  ar 
rived  at  the  paradox  that  a  friend  is  a  treasure  to  be 
enjoyed  preferably  in  absence. 

There  were  two  obstacles  that  intervened  between 
him  and  that  free  communication  and  enjoyment  in 
human  intercourse  which  in  its  affectionate  forms 
becomes  friendship.  The  first  was  the  "  cold  obstruc 
tion  "  of  his  own  temperament.  One  extract  from  his 
journals,  in  1839,  sufficiently  states  his  own  view  of 
the  case,  and  it  is  typical  of  many  other  of  his  expres 
sions  from  early  youth  to  maturity  of  age  : — 

"  Some  people  are  born  public  souls,  and  live  with  all 
their  doors  open  to  the  street.  Close  beside  them  we  find  in 
contrast  the  lonely  man,  with  all  his  doors  shut,  reticent, 
thoughtful,  shrinking  from  crowds,  afraid  to  take  hold  of 
hands ;  thankful  for  the  existence  of  the  other,  but  incapa 
ble  of  such  performance,  wondering  at  its  possibility;  full 
of  thoughts,  but  paralyzed  and  silenced  instantly  by  these 
boisterous  masters  ;  and,  though  loving  his  race,  discovering 
at  last  that  he  has  no  proper  sympathy  with  persons,  but 
only  with  their  genius  and  aims.  He  is  solitary  because  he 
has  society  in  his  thought,  ainl,  when  people  come  in,  they 
drive  away  his  society  and  isolate  him.  We  would  all  be 


92  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

public  men,  if  we  could  afford  it ;  I  am  wholly  private  ;  such 
is  the  poverty  of  my  constitution.  Heaven  '  betrayed  me  to 
a  book,  and  wrapped  me  in  a  gown.'  I  have  no  social  talent, 
no  will,  and  a  steady  appetite  for  insights  in  any  or  all 
directions,  to  balance  my  manifold  imbecilities. 

"...  Most  of  the  persons  whom  I  see  in  my  own  house  I 
see  across  a  gulf.  I  cannot  go  to  them  nor  they  come  to  me. 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  frigidity  and  labor  of  my  speech  with 
such.  You  might  turn  a  yoke  of  oxen  between  every  pair  of 
words ;  and  the  behavior  is  as  awkward  and  proud.  I  see 
the  ludicrousness  of  the  plight  as  well  as  they.  But  never 
having  found  any  remedy,  I  am  very  patient  of  this  folly 
or  shame  ;  patient  of  my  churl's  mask,  in  the  belief  that  this 
privation  has  certain  rich  compensations." 

The  second  obstacle  lay  in  one  of  Emerson's  most 
interesting  traits,  belonging  in  the  sphere  of  his 
idiosyncrasy.  The  gradual  fading  out  of  personality 
as  an  element  in  life  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
incidents  in  the  history  of  his  mind.  The  phenome 
non  itself  characterizes  the  intellectual  life  in  any 
high  state  of  development,  and  is  a  part  of  the  en 
franchisement  of  the  mind  from  the  senses  and  the 
tyranny  of  all  mortal  conditions ;  but  in  Emerson  it 
is  seen  with  strange  lucidity  and  a  shade  of  sadness. 
The  sense  of  the  personality  of  Christ  was  the  first  to 
go  ;  at  a  very  early  age  whatever  blessing  streams  from 
the  person  of  Jesus  was  dried  up  in  the  young  minister. 
The  personality  of  (rod  then  passed  in  turn ;  this  was 
a  necessity  of  thought ;  philosophy  required  it.  "  The 
soul  knows  no  persons."  Finally,  personality  began  to 
ebb  from  individuals,  for  the  law  held  in  the  human 
as  well  as  in  the  supernatural  sphere.  The  death  of 
his  brothers,  the  death  of  his  wife  in  the  brief  marriage 
days  of  early  life,  the  death  of  his  son,  lowered  the 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  93 

value  of  personality  by  showing  its  transitoriness. 
Why  does  one  love  his  friends  ?  Is  it  not  for  their 
virtue  and  moral  illumination,  for  their  excellence  of 
being  ?  This  was  Emersoir  s  thought.  He  loved  his 
friends,  in  the  high  sense,  for  what  they  contained  of 
God,  or  excellence  of  being ;  and  naturally  this  was 
a  value  that  diminished  on  acquaintance,  such  is  hu 
manity  even  in  the  best  and  happiest  examples. 
Friendship  seemed  more  and  more  a  thing  tangential 
with  life,  full  of  contingency,  with  benefits  very 
sporadic  ;  each  soul  is  a  necessary  solitude  unto  itself. 
This  philosophical  history  underlay  not  only  Emerson's 
doctrine  of  friendship,  but  his  reflective  attitude,  as 
distinguished  from  practical  service,  to  his  friends"; 
for  he  was  infinitely  persistent  in  believing  his  own 
states  of  mind. 

Emerson,  however,  was  a  very  kindly  man,  and  his 
social  inaptitude  and  mental  view,  though  they  played 
their  part,  did  not  destroy  the  pleasures  of  friendship 
of  which  he  had  as  full  a  share  as  his  temperament 
allowed,  and  it  was  a  goodly  portion.  Of  what  may 
be  termed  honest  friendship,  kept  wholesome  by 
serviceableness  in  real  things,  Mr.  Abel  Adams  was 
the  best  type.  He  was  the  only  individual  from 
whom  Emerson  accepted  any  financial  aid.  At  one 
time  Mr.  Adams,  who  was  his  business  adviser,  had 
led  him  to  make  an  unlucky  investment  in  Vermont 
railroads  ;  and  in  the  hard  times  of  the  Civil  War,  when 
Emerson's  son  was  in  college,  remembering  this  inci 
dent,  he  asked  to  be  allowed  to  bear  the  collegiate 
expenses,  and  Emerson  after  some  consideration  con 
sented.  He  had  no  sounder  friend.  In  his  own 
family  another  natural  and  simple  friendship  grew  up 


94  KALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

with  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar,  who,  having  been  betrothed 
to  his  brother  Charles  and  being  treated  as  a  daughter 
by  his  mother,  became  an  intimate  of  the  house  ;  in  her 
society  he  found  the  grace  of  womanly  friendship  in 
ways  without  disturbance  to  his  sensitiveness,  and  this 
was  one  of  his  domestic  treasures,  as  if  in  the  family 
circle.  It  is  only  on  the  entrance  of  literary  persons 
that  incompleteness  in  the  relations  begins  to  be  felt. 
The  first  man  of  letters,  or  at  least  of  the  literary  life, 
whom  Emerson  made  his  friend  was  Alcott.  He  over 
flowed  with  admiration  for  him,  and  of  all  men  best 
appreciated  his  nature  and  most  forgave  his  ways.  He 
confessed  Alcott  could  not  write  nor  make  any  useful 
public  expression  of  himself  ;  he  made  him  show  to  the 
English  friends  whom  he  was  bringing  over  a  letter  in 
which  was  plainly  set  down  the  statement  that  the 
philosopher,  whatever  value  he  might  have  as  a  guide 
in  theory,  was  not  to  be  trusted  in  matters  of  fact,  and 
in  the  socialistic  experiment  at  Fruitlands  Emerson 
found  vexation,  doubtless,  as  in  Alcott' s  practical  affairs 
generally  ;  but  he  proclaimed  the  greatness  of  the  man 
and  his  value  for  him  unceasingly.  He  was  loyal;  he 
even  asked  him  and  his  wife  to  share  his  house,  but 
Mrs.  Alcott  sensibly  declined ;  yet  he  does  not  make 
very  plain  what  it  was  in  Alcott  that  he  prized  pre 
cisely  except  that  through  conversation  with  him  Plato 
became  a  reality  instead  of  remaining  a  beautiful 
dream.  "When  I  go  to  talk  with  Alcott,"  he  says, 
"it  is  not  so  much  to  get  his  thoughts  as  to  watch 
myself  under  his  influence.  He  excites  me,  and  I 
think  freely."  He  was  generous  and  even  enthusias 
tic,  as  was  his  habit,  in  praise ;  but  perhaps  what  most 
fastened  his  attention  was  the  sage's  faculty  for  sub- 


in.]  "THE   IIYPOCKITIC   DAYS"  95 

limated  talk,  together  with  his  entire  unconcern  for 
practicality.  The  story  of  their  friendship  shows 
Emerson  in  unfailingly  humane  action  amid  some 
what  trying  circumstances,  and  this  is  a  more  im 
portant  trait  than  his  intellectual  admiration.  On 
the  other  hand,  Alcott  noticed  the  "  impersonal  or 
discrete"  quality  of  Emerson's  manner,  and  thought 
it  lessened  his  charm.  Margaret  Fuller  was  another 
person  who  awakened  his  admiration.  She  was  a 
visitor  at  his  house.  She  had  energy  of  the  heart  as 
well  as  of  the  head,  and  she  tried  with  much  despera 
tion,  it  would  appear,  to  win  into  his  intimacy.  His 
responses  to  her,  pleading  the  barriers  of  his  nature 
and  retiring  into  dumbness  as  his  assigned  state  in 
this  world,  as  well  as  his  remarks  about  the  chills 
with  which  her  presence  at  times  affected  him  when 
she  unhappily  sought  to  thaw  him,  sufficiently  disclose 
the  situation.  "  She  ever  seems  to  crave,"  he  says, 
"  something  I  have  not,  or  have  not  for  her ;  "  and 
again,  "  She  freezes  me  to  silence  when  we  promise 
to  come  nearest."  He  was  brought  much  into  rela 
tions  with  her  through  their  joint  interest  in  Tlie  Dial, 
and  he  was  as  serviceable  to  her  as  his  opportunities 
allowed,  as  he  was  to  every  one ;  and  he  joined  in 
writing  her  memoir  after  her  death.  On  her  part, 
finding  the  impenetrability  of  the  defence,  she  had 
long  desisted  from  the  attack. 

Emerson  was  very  sensible  of  the  response  that  the 
young  made  to  him,  and  he  was  much  more  at  ease 
in  meeting  them  than  in  his  general  intercourse  with 
the  world.  He  had  a  welcome  for  them  always,  his 
quickest  sympathies  were  awakened,  and  in  youth 
itself  he  found  unfailing  charm.  He  opened  to  them 


96  RALPH   WALJJO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

more  readily,  and  with  some  touch  of  the  intimacy  that 
only  his  own  household  knew,  which  however  brief 
and  ordinary  and  passing,  some  of  them  long  remem 
bered  and  bore  witness  to.  The  account  which  Mr. 
Albee  gives  of  his  visit  there  as  a  schoolboy,  a  stranger, 
is  an  admirable  instance  of  Emerson's  way  with  the 
young.  It  is  not  singular  that  the  two  friends  who  got 
on  best  and  most  humanly  with  him  were  young  men 
/when  he  made  friends  of  them.  Both  Thoreau  and  El- 
'lery  Channing  were  fifteen  years  younger  than  Emerson 
and  in  their  twenties  when  the  friendship  became  firnf 
and  cordial.  They  were  companions,  one  or  the  other 
of  them  but  not  together,  of  his  walks,  and  both  were 
enthusiasts  for  nature,  with  woodcraft  and  artist-lore, 
and  contributed  something  to  quicken  and  enrich  his 
own  enjoyment.  They  were  both,  too,  sharers  of  his 
primitive  tastes  and  useful  in  practical  country  ways. 
Channing  once  cut  his  wood  for  him,  and  Thoreau 
planted  his  pasture  with  young  trees.  There  was 
some  comradery  in  both  these  friendships,  and  Emerson 
came  nearer  to  these  two  than  to  any  others  outside  of 
his  household  in  human  ways.  Here  friendship  had 
another  than  intellectual  or  literary  ground ;  it  was 
more  broadly  based  in  a  companionship  of  life  nor 
mally  and  happily  engaged.  Thoreau,  indeed,  became 
for  two  years,  when  he  was  twenty-four,  an  inmate  of 
the  house,  and  was  a  much  prized  member  of  the  family 
in  family  ways,  helpful  to  all.  The  recollections  of 
the  children  show  that  he  was  much  endeared  to  them, 
and  until  his  death  he  was  an  unfailing  resource  in 
times  when  his  help  or  care  was  wanted.  The 
memoirs  of  the  house  are  wholly  honourable  to  him, 
and  show  him  in  the  most  humane  light  that  falls  any- 


in.]  "THE    HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  97 

where  upon  his  life.  It  is  true  that  there  was  a  bond 
of  intellectual  likeness,  almost  identity,  between  him 
and  Emerson  ;  but  his  individuality  is  in  the  bond,  too, 
combative  and  unconfirmed,  original  and  hardy,  and 
by  it  whatever  he  had  received  from  Emerson  was 
stamped  his  own ;  yet  the  friendship  was  not  an 
intellectual  one  simply  or  primarily,  but  was  a  bond  of 
life.  It  seems  not  unlikely  that  these  two  young  men 
had  a  hand  in  stirring  Emerson  to  join  in  the  Anti- 
Slavery  campaign,  in  which  they  both  showed  young 
blood ;  they  certainly  sustained  him  in  his  woodcraft, 
which  was  a  large  part  of  his  poetic  energy  ;  and  in 
their  companionship  he  was  most  fortunate.  It  is  no 
ticeable  that  he  did  not  overestimate  their  literary 
talent ;  he  had  no  illusions  about  the  merit  of  even  his 
greater  contemporaries,  and  he  was  not  to  be  deceived 
by  the  smaller  ones ;  just  as  he  wrote  to  Carlyle  that 
Margaret  Fuller  had  neither  beauty  nor  genius,  he 
looked  on  Thoreau  and  Channing  with  eyes  that  rather 
diminished  than  exaggerated  their  talents. 

It  was  in  the  circle  of  social  acquaintance  that  Emer 
son's  coldness  was  most  embarrassing  to  himself  and  dis 
concerting  for  others.  Hawthorne  was  atone  time  his 
neighbour;  they  met  occasionally  and  once  took  a  brief 
walking  tour  together,  but  neither  of  them  had  the 
genial  power  of  human  nature,  and  their  contact  was 
only  friendly  and  external.  Hawthorne,  on  his  side, 
left  the  immortal  picture :  "  It  was  good  to  meet  him 
in  the  wood  paths  or  sometimes  in  our  avenue  with 
that  pure  intellectual  gleam  diffusing  about  his  pres 
ence  like  the  garment  of  a  shining  one."  Emerson, 
on  the  other  side,  felt  that  here  was  a  man  greater  than 
his  works,  which  was  a  common  judgment  of  his  with 


98  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

regard  to  men ;  he  could  not  read  his  friend's  books, 
and  described  them  as  "  too  young."  With  the  Cam 
bridge  men  his  relations  were  never  close,  partly  be 
cause  at  Harvard  he  had  been  tabooed  by  the  elder 
generation,  and  it  was  only  with  the  younger  men 
there  that  he  came  into  friendly  contact ;  among 
them,  as  for  example  Lowell,  there  was  warmth  of 
admiration  for  Emerson  and  that  love  which  is  min 
gled  of  respect  and  youthful  gratitude ;  but  the  threads 
of  his  life,  though  they  crossed  with  those  of  his  con 
temporaries  in  literature,  did  so  in  a  purely  temporal 
way  and  without  importance;  he  had  no  true  touch 
with  Longfellow  or  Holmes  or  Lowell  any  more  than 
with  Hawthorne  or  Whittier,  nor  did  he  value  their 
literary  performance  highly  in  any  case.  He  lived  in 
a  quite  different  world  from  them.  In  his  own  study 
he  was  most  disappointing  to  those  who  came  to  sit  at 
the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  of  whom  there  were  many,  for  he 
steadily  refused  to  be  an  oracle  or  guide  of  life,  and 
he  was  discreet  and  often  non-committal  in  replying 
to  direct  questions  on  high  topics.  The  experience  of 
Henry  James,  senior,  is  an  example,  the  more  striking 
because  expressed  with  some  vexation.  He  attacked 
Emerson  intellectually  with  much  the  same  youthful 
vehemence,  it  would  seem,  as  Margaret  Fuller  had 
used  emotionally,  and  met  the  same  disaster  of  com 
plete  overthrow.  "  It  turned  out,  "  he  says,  "  that  any 
average  old  dame  in  a  horse-car  would  have  satisfied 
my  intellectual  capacity  just  as  well  as  Emerson." 
The  antithesis  between  the  personal  fascination  of 
Emerson,  whether  speaking  or  silent,  as  a  figure,  and 
his  intellectual  torpor  in  conversation,  seemed  very 
marvellous  to  Mr.  James.  There  were  others  who  had 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  99 

similarly  unhappy  fortune  in  the  encounter.  The 
more  sensible  pilgrims  were  disconcerted  and  non 
plussed  at  finding  how  little  there  was  to  receive ; 
the  more  lunatic  were  annoyed  or  outraged  by  the  in 
explicable  dryness  ;  yet  all  went  away  conscious  of  his 
"  vague  nobleness  and  thorough  sweetness  "  to  use 
Miss  Martineau's  words,  and  perhaps  feeling  content 
with  him  as  a  man  out  of  their  sphere,  but  strangely 
puzzled  by  finding  how  completely  they  had  failed  of 
any  approach,  sympathy,  response,  contact,  or  under 
standing.  This  is  an  extreme  statement ;  but  it 
must  have  been  true  of  numbers  of  the  train  of  pil 
grims  that  sought  his  doors.  To  himself  the  variety 
of  their  devils  seemed  legion,  and  in  his  own  thoughts 
he  was  impatient  of  being  confessor  to  folly  and 
craziness.  But  he  had  such  a  respect  for  the  individ 
ual  soul,  and  was  so  tender  of  its  rights  and  private 
intuitions,  that  he  had  formed  a  habit  of  hospitality 
of  mind  and  welcome  to  the  most  unpromising.  It  is 
said  that  at  times  even  his  equanimity  gave  way  and 
that  on  rare  occasions  he  gave  vent  to  his  indigna 
tion  and  disapproval  in  plain  words.  As  time 
went  on  and  the  transcendentalists  and  other  reformers 
became  figures  of  the  past,  the  pilgrims  were  more 
amenable ;  but  in  thinking  of  the  "  coldness "  of 
Emerson,  his  self-guard,  incommunicability,  and  im 
penetrability,  it  should  be  remembered  in  what  a  school 
he  was  tried.  The  ideal  which  he  ascribed  to  "  Osman  " 
was  his  own:  "Let  it  be  set  down  to  the  praise  of 
Osman  that  he  had  a  humanity  so  broad  and  deep  that, 
though  his  nature  was  so  subtly  fine  as  to  disgust  all 
men  with  his  refinements  and  spider-spinnings,  yet 
there  was  never  a  poor  outcast,  eccentric,  or  insane 


100  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHA*. 

man,  some  fool  with  a  beard,  or  a  mutilation,  or  pet 
madness  in  his  brain,  but  fled  at  once  to  him  —  that 
great  heart  lay  there  so  sunny  and  hospitable  in  the 
centre  of  the  country.  And  the  madness  which  he 
harbored  he  did  not  share. " 

The  reserve  of  Emerson  is  to  be  looked  at  in  the 
light  of  this  ideal,  which  he  realized  in  his  human  re 
lations  with  the  truly  poor,  with  the  maimed,  the  de 
spised  and  rejected,  the  feeble,  and  the  unhappy  ;  no 
man  did  his  duty  better  by  them  in  this  world.  His 
habitual  demeanour,  the  tranquillity,  the  placidity,  the 
unmoved  calm  of  his  spirit,  was  the  most  medicinal  of 
traits  in  such  an  office ;  though  founded  on  his  natural 
reserve  and  sustained  by  his  aristocratic  force  in  which 
there  were  large  elements  of  fastidiousness,  of  silent 
repulsions,  and  even  a  marked  strain  of  haughtiness, 
yet  it  must  also  be  thought  that  education  bore  a  part 
in  building  up  that  absolute  self-possession  and  com 
mand,  that  self-containment,  which  was  as  much  a 
thing  of  choice  as  of  necessity  and  was  the  strength  of 
his  character ;  a  thousand  influences  playing  upon  him 
daily  for  years  taught  him  to  refrain. 

There  was,  of  course,  as  years  went  by  and  his  fame 
spread,  an  increasing  stream  of  those  who  put  in  an 
appearance  by  letters  only,  with  gratitude  or  for 
counsel.  To  these  appeals  Emerson  was  courteously 
attentive,  and  in  several  cases  he  is  known  to  have  taken 
great  pains  for  these  distant  and  strange  correspondents 
and  to  have  maintained  a  long  interest  in  them.  In  gen 
eral,  he  was  not  a  good  letter- writer,  not  interesting  and 
fluent ;  his  letters  to  Carlyle,  by  which  his  correspon 
dence  is  best  known,  are  composed  rather  than  written ; 
like  most  of  his  important  letters,  they  were  drafted 


m.]  "THE  HYPOCRITIC  I>AYS'J,' ;  -  101 

and  copied.  In  connection  with  this  rather  singular 
circumstance,  however,  it  should  be  recalled  that 
Emerson  was  not  accustomed  to  straightaway  writing  ; 
he  never  composed  with  a  running  pen;  the  lecture  or 
essay  was  a  mosaic  and  composite  product,  a  recombi 
nation  and  not  a  first  creation ;  it  was  in  his  political 
addresses  that  he  is  most  forthright  in  style.  The 
letters  to  Carlyle  are  the  memorial  of  the  most  illus 
trious  of  his  distant  friendships,  and  indeed  the  only 
such  friendship  of  importance.  It  was  a  very  perfect 
type  of  Emerson's  mode  of  friendship  on  both  the 
practical  and  reflective  side,  and  in  the  published  record 
of  it  the  two  phases  are  amply  illustrated.  He  was  inex 
haustible  in  actual  service  and  gave  an  attention  to  the 
interests  of  Carlyle  in  America,  both  in  publication 
and  income,  that  involved  much  patient  trouble  and 
even  sacrifice  for  himself,  and  he  was  also  always  ready 
with  praise  and  courage  for  his  friend,  with  pride  in 
him,  and  with  affectionate  solicitude  in  the  things 
of  private  life.  The  two  men  so  profoundly  con 
trasted  were  deeply  attached  each  in  his  own  way.  As 
time  went  on,  it  was  plainly  Emerson  who  came  to 
care  less  for  the  expression  of  friendship,  and  found 
that  it  sufficed  him  as  a  silent  treasure  :  he  seems  less 
warm  in  contrast  with  his  friend,  and  to  abate  some 
what,  whereas  in  the  beginning  it  had  been  the  other 
way ;  and  age  coming  upon  both,  the  letters  naturally 
ceased.  The  portrait  of  Carlyle,  however,  hanging  in 
the  study,  was  perhaps  its  most  prized  treasure,  and  to 
the  end  of  Emerson's  days  that  face  was  always,  in  his 
last  words  full  of  proud  affection  as  his  mind  was 
fading,  "  my  man." 

The   varied   course   of    these   years   at   home   was 


102,  BAEffl   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

broken  by  Emerson's  second  visit  to  England  and 
France.  He  had  been  invited  to  lecture  in  England 
and  after  much  hesitation  he  decided  to  go.  He 
sailed  on  October  5,  1847,  and  landed  at  Liverpool. 
Mr.  Alexander  Ireland  was  his  principal  adviser  and 
helper,  and  under  his  guidance  he  lectured  in  many 
provincial  towns  and  also  in  London  and  Edinburgh. 
He  was  well  received,  drew  public  attention  and  inter 
ested  audiences,  and  succeeded  in  the  same  way  as  in 
America,  but  to  a  greater  degree.  There  was  in  his 
hearers  the  mental  astonishment  and  vague  under 
standing  that  he  awoke  in  his  own  country,  but 
shining  through  this  were  the  authority  of  the  spirit 
ual  meaning,  the  person  of  Emerson  with  its  visionary 
fascination,  and  the  charm  of  the  sentences,  each  appar 
ently  so  lucid  in  itself  but  dazzling  the  understanding 
in  the  mystery  of  their  combination.  He  spoke  natu 
rally,  without  any  attempt  at  effect,  just  as  he  stood 
before  the  audience  in  his  native  angularity  and  thin 
ness,  ancL  the  truths  he  read  in  his  clear  and  nasal 
voice,  without  intonation  or  other  elocution  than  enun 
ciation,  made  the  oration.  The  audiences  were  at  first 
startled,  then  pleased,  and  even  became  enthusiastic 
at  times,  in  his  reception.  He  made  an  excellent 
impression  by  his  sincerity  and  elevation,  and  perhaps 
by  his  boldness  as  well  as  by  the  literary  strength  of 
his  discourse,  and  he  increased  his  reputation  in  Eng 
land  where  he  had  long  had  readers.  He  was  also 
much  taken  out  of  himself  and  his  solitary  ways.  lie 
stayed  much  in  private  houses  and  was  probably  never 
so  mixed  with  human  society  in  his  life.  He  was  re 
ceived  with  endless  kindness  everywhere.  In  London 
Carlyle  welcomed  him,  and  with  his  aid  and  that  of 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  103 

Bancroft  and  others  he  saw  much  of  England  and  the 
English,  in  the  literary  and  aristocratic  portions  of 
society  as  well  as  in  the  middle  class.  He  enjoyed  the 
attention  shown  him,  especially  as  a  means  of  meeting 
men,  which  was  always  his  principal  desire  in  travel. 
His  mind  was  more  alert  and  open  than  during  his 
former  stay  abroad,  and  was  thoroughly  hospitable. 
He  was,  in  general,  greatly  pleased  with  the  English 
as  a  nation  of  strong  practicality  and  infinite  resource 
in  material  civilization;  he  made  the  usual  limitations 
to  which  his  mind  was  accustomed,  which  had  their 
ground  in  his  own  spirituality  and  the  democratic 
training  of  his  birth  and  life;  his  eyes  were  not 
abashed  or  confused  or  disturbed  by  any  object  of  great 
ness,  the  things  of  trade  or  rank,  or  fame  or  brilliance 
in  reputation,  but  he  was  quick  to  recognize  their 
worth,  though  his  scale  was  his  own;  he  imposed  his 
judgment,  and  it  was  naturally  the  old  judgment,  as 
for  example  that  there  was  "no  religion"  in  England, 
and  that  men  were  less  than  they  should  be,  and  that, 
whatever  might  be  his  admiration,  he  had  little  sympa 
thy  or  attachment.  Carlyle  and  Emerson  met  infre 
quently,  and  not  always,  it  is  said,  with  pleasure ;  the 
violence  of  the  one  and  the  ethereality  of  the  other 
were  incongruous;  but  they  were  old  friends,  who, 
secure  of  each  other's  real  respect  and  affection, 
agreed  to  differ,  and  they  made  a  journey  together 
toward  the  end.  The  gentle  ways  of  Leigh  Hunt  and 
the  refinement  of  De  Quincey  pleased  Emerson  ;  but 
the  men  of  letters  in  general,  like  the  other  men  of 
mind,  interested  him  but  did  not  further  attract  him. 
At  Oxford  he  made  another  young  friend,  Arthur 
Clough,  who  afterward  followed  him  to  Concord ;  in 


104  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

Paris,  whither  he  went  for  three  weeks,  the  two  dined 
together  often,  and  Clough  was  to  him  not  unlike  the 
young  men  he  had  left  at  home,  of  whom  Thoreau 
was  then  taking  care  of  his  household.  These  months 
when  he  was  abroad  were  times  of  Chartism  in  England 
and  Revolution  in  Paris,  and  he  was  thus  brought  near 
to  the  social  phases  of  the  system  in  those  countries, 
and  this  fact  affected  the  character  of  his  remarks  upon 
them.  It  was,  altogether,  the  most  rich  experience  of 
society,  and  the  only  important  one,  that  he  ever  had. 
It  must  have  been  much,  too,  even  for  such  an  indi 
vidualist  as  himself,  to  be  so  assured  of  his  place  in  the 
world  by  public  recognition.  In  his  travelling,  how 
ever,  the  old  self  continually  reasserted  its  instincts 
and  habits ;  he  felt  lost  in  the  confusion  and  strain  of 
lectures;  he  missed  his  family,  and  longed  for  home, 
and  was  glad  when  he  arrived  there  toward  the  end 
of  July,  1848,  after  so  fruitful  and  happy  an  ex 
cursion. 

The  Civil  War,  when  it  broke  out  in  April,  1861, 
found  Emerson  in  the  midst  of  a  course  of  lectures  in 
Boston,  and  on  the  next  occasion  after  the  fall  of  Eort 
Sumter  he  introduced  a  lecture  in  which  he  congratu 
lated  the  people  upon  the  consolidation  of  the  nation 
in  the  cause  and  eloquently  described  the  fervour  of 
the  moment.  The  war,  as  it  went  on,  brought  to  him 
its  privations  as  to  others,  lectures  becoming  practically 
impossible  and  books  not  being  salable  ;  the  activity 
of  his  practical  life  was  broken  ;  but  upon  every  proper 
occasion  he  took  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  topic  of 
the  day.  In  the  earlier  years  he  spoke  often  on  Sun 
days  before  the  free  congregation  of  Theodore  Parker, 
who  had  died.  With  regard  to  public  affairs,  he  lee- 


in.]  "THE   HYPOCRITIC   DAYS"  105 

tured  in  Washington  on  Emancipation  in  February, 
1862,  and  saw  Lincoln  and  talked  with  him  on  the 
subject  of  slavery.  He  spoke  at  the  meeting  in  Bos 
ton  on  the  issuing  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipa 
tion  in  September  of  that  year,  and  at  the  celebration 
of  the  day  when  it  went  into  effect,  January  1,  1863, 
he  read  his  Boston  Hymn.  He  also  spoke  at  Concord 
on  the  occasion  of  Lincoln's  death,  and  took  part  in 
the  welcome  home  of  the  Harvard  soldiers  on  Com 
mencement  Day,  1865.  Throughout  the  war  he  was 
deeply  moved  in  his  patriotic  feelings  and  rejoiced  in 
it  not  only  as  a  cause  of  civilization,  but  for  its  rein- 
vigoration  of  the  spirit  of  the  people.  The  effect  of 
it  upon  his  own  thought  was  remarkable ;  the  anti 
social  and  anarchistic  sentiments  which  were  to  be 
plentifully  found  in  his  writings  before  this  time 
cease;  and  in  their  place  there  is  a  powerful 'grasp 
of  the  social  unities  embodied  in  the  state  as  a  main 
source  of  the  blessings  of  civilization.  It  is,  however, 
rather  in  his  poetry  that  the  sentiment  of  the  war  left 
its  mark. 

Throughout  all  this  period  from  1836  to  1865,  which 
was  the  active  portion  of  his  life  and  included  the 
maturity  of  his  genius,  he  published  books,  though  at 
infrequent  intervals.  Succeeding  the  volume  entitled 
Nature,  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  and  Divinity  School 
Addresses  had  been  separately  issued.  The  first  se 
ries  of  Essays  appeared  in  1841,  both  here  and  in 
England ;  the  second  series  in  1844,  also  reprinted 
there.  The  first  collection  of  Poems  was  published 
in  1847.  There  followed  in  turn  Miscellanies,  1849, 
Representative  Men,  1850,  English  Traits,  1856, 
Tie  Conduct  of  Life,  1860.  The  last  was  the  first 


106  KALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP,  in 

book  to  have  a  ready  sale,  twenty-five  hundred  copies 
being  disposed  of  in  a  few  days,  and  marked  the 
establishment  of  his  popular  vogue  as  an  author. 
Up  to  this  time  his  reputation  as  a  writer  had  been 
perhaps  equal  in  England  to  what  it  was  in  his  own 
country,  owing  to  the  influential  introduction  given 
to  him  in  that  country  by  Carlyle  and  to  the  state  of 
liberal  opinion  there  and  to  its  organization ;  and  his 
Essays  were  somewhat  known  in  France,  where  Qui- 
net  especially  had  directed  attention  to  him.  Outside 
of  books  he  had  published  at  first  in  the  North  Amer 
ican  Review  a  few  articles ;  The  Dial,  and,  much  later, 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  received  many  contributions 
from  him,  and  there  had  been  some  other  sporadic 
appearance  of  his  papers  and  poems.  He  had  also 
joined  in  the  Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller,  and  had 
edited  Thoreau's  remains.  Though  he  published  later 
volumes  collected  from  his  lectures,  the  original  work 
of  his  life  was  already  completed  by  this  date,  and  be 
longs  to  the  literary  period  before  the  war.  It  is  most 
convenient  to  view  it  as  a  whole. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    ESSAYS 

THE  better  mode  of  approaching  Emerson's  ideas  is 
to  examine  them,  after  his  own  method,  as  they  arose 
in  his  mind,  not  systematically,  but  as  groups  of  re 
lated  ideas  about  a  few  centres  of  thought.  It  is 
proper  to  mention  as  preliminaries  to  his  thinking  the 
predisposition  of  his  mind  to  a  religious  interpretation 
of  life  and  his  preoccupation  with  morals.  These 
were  survivals  in  him  of  old  religion  and  of  his  pro 
fessional  habit  and  training,  and  sprang  from  a  mix 
ture  of  heredity  and  education.  He  was  by  type  a 
New  England  minister,  and  he  never  lost  the  mould 
either  in  personal  appearance  or  in  mental  behaviour ; 
all  his  ideas  wear  the  black  coat.  He  addressed 
men  from  a  platform  of  superiority  and  spoke  with 
authority ;  as  a  lecturer  no  less  than  as  a  preacher 
in  the  Old  North  Church  he  was  an  "  ambassador  of 
the  Highest,"  and  felt  his  profession.  However  he 
may  deprecate  and  disclaim,  and  say  with  Socrates 
that  he  does  not  teach,  but  if  any  benefit  by  him  the 
god  teaches  them,  he  can  no  more  lay  aside  the 
assured  and  aggressive  attitude  of  a  believer  in  that 
which  alone  is  true  and  which  he  so  declares,  than  he 
could  lay  off  the  formality  of  his  manners.  It  is  to 
as  little  use  that  he  would  sometimes  take  on  the 
countenance  of  Montaigne  and  seem  a  simple  in- 

107 


108  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

quirer,  a  man  of  many  moods  and  committed  to  none 
of  them;  there  was  not  a  fibre  of  scepticism  in  his 
whole  constitution.  Montaigne  held  the  ways  of  the 
world  and  Emerson  the  ways  of  the  spirit,  and  each 
dealt  freely  with  his  own ;  but  in  all  his  doings  Em 
erson  was  dominated  above  his  will  by  a  faith  so  pure, 
so  absolute,  so  unquestioning  that  he  could  hardly 
divide  it  from  his  consciousness  of  being.  He  was, 
too,  a  man  of  one  idea,  the  moral  sentiment,  though 
the  singleness  of  the  idea  was  compatible  in  its  appli 
cation  to  life  with  infinite  diversity  in  its  phases ; 
wherever  his  theme  may  begin,  it  becomes  religious, 
he  exhorts,  and  all  ends  at  last  in  the  primacy  of 
morals.  The  Essays  are  the  best  of  lay-sermons  ;  but 
their  laicism  is  only  the  king's  incognito.  He  was  so 
much  a  man  of  religion  that  he  undervalued  literature, 
science,  and  art,  and  their  chief  examples,  because 
they  viewed  life  from  a  different  point,  just  as  on  his 
first  visit  to  England  he  thought  Landor  and  Carlyle, 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  failed  of  the  full  measure 
of  men  because  they  were  not  overwhelmingly  filled 
with  the  moral  sentiment  and  its  importance.  In 
both  cases  the  view  taken  is  professional.  Literature 
enters  into  the  Essays  as  salt  and  savour ;  but  their 
end  is  not  literary.  Emerson  in  the  substance  of  his 
work  belongs  with  the  divine  writers,  the  religious 
spiritualists,  the  sacred  moralists,  the  mystic  philoso 
phers,  in  whose  hands  all  things  turn  to  religion,  to 
whom  all  life  is  religion,  and  nothing  moves  in  the 
world  except  to  divine  meanings. 

Although  Emerson  was  not  careful  to  coordinate 
the  several  parts  of  his  thought,  they  are  not  with 
out  organic  relations;  and  from  the  beginning,  not- 


IT.]  THE  ESSAYS  109 

withstanding  his  profession  of  unconcern  for  system, 
he  had  in  mind  a  vague  intention  of  attempting  a 
statement  of  his  philosophical  views  with  some  de 
gree  of  wholeness.  The  First  Philosophy  was  his 
name  for  the  theory  in  its  entirety,  and  he  made  some 
trials  at  writing  it  down  almost  at  the  start;  and 
later  he  gathered  some  parts  of  the  doctrine  under 
the  title,  The  Natural  History  of  Intellect;  but  he 
never  completed  either  of  these  schemes.  Since  the 
days  of  Socrates  ignorance  is  as  good  a  starting- 
point  as  any  for  a  philosopher ;  and  Emerson  has  one 
profession  of  ignorance  which  is  fundamental.  "Xo 
power  of  genius,"  he  writes,  "has  ever  yet  had  the 
smallest  success  in  explaining  existence.  The  perfect 
enigma  remains."  It  is  therefore  not  explicitly  a 
philosophy  of  the  absolute  that  is  offered,  though  the 
absolute  enters  into  it  as  an  element.  Inside  the 
sphere  of  ignorance  lies  existence  as  it  is  known  to 
man,  and  Emerson's  thought  always  works  within  the 
limits  of  human  experience.  The  primary  intuition 
in  his  philosophy  and  initial  point  of  all  its  develop 
ment  may  be  stated  in  the  formula,  —  I  am,  therefore 
God  is.  The  soul  knows  itself  as  an  effect  of  which 
the  cause  is  God ;  and  cause  and  effect  being  consub- 
stantial,  and  the  one,  as  it  were,  but  the  obverse  of 
the  other,  God  and  the  soul  have  an  identical  being. 
Emerson  conceives  existence  as  energy ;  uncircum- 
scribed  and  formless  it  is  God,  conditioned  and  in  the 
finite  it  is  the  soul  within  and  Nature  without.  It  is 
in  all  three  one  divine  energy.  The  soul  may  be  best 
defined  as  a  particular  form  of  divine  energy.  Em 
erson  describes  it  in  terms  as  "  a  particle  of  God,"  and 
says  that  it  "  becomes  God."  The  identity  of  God 


110  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  the  soul  in  essential  being  is  a  fundamental  tenet; 
and  if  it  be  his  "  least-breathed-on  thought/7  it  is  the 
most  precious  of  all  and  the  centre  of  faith.  The 
soul's  knowledge  of  God,  however,  is  not  self-know 
ledge,  but  is  rather  unfolded  to  human  apprehension 
separately  and  diversely  as  knowledge  of  that  energy, 
not  ourselves,  which  has  self-existence  for  its  chief 
trait  and  is  operant  in  and  upon  the  soul,  but  above 
it.  This  self-existent  energy,  on  the  divine  side,  is 
known  under  the  phase  of  causation,  of  which  the 
soul  is  the  effect,  the  phase  of  the  eternal  verities. 
Truth,  Beauty,  and  Virtue  clothed  with  majesty  and 
instant  authority  over  the  soul,  and  the  phase  of  law 
operating  in  manifold  ways  but  with  perfect  sway  in 
all  being.  In  these  several  ways  the  soul  stands  in 
denned  connection  with  God,  and  is  thought  of,  not 
under  the  aspect  of  identity  with,  but  as  subject  to 
operation  from,  an  energy  superior  to  itself.  The 
mode  of  operation  is  termed  an  influx  of  deity  into 
the  soul.  This  influx  is  variable  and  takes  place  at 
moments  definitely  characterized.  First,  the  moments 
are  memorable,  landmarks  of  the  soul,  and  have  a  far- 
reaching  and  profound  influence  in  the  intervals  of 
lower  life.  Secondly,  the  soul  during  them  is  con 
scious  of  an  unusual  and  immense  fulness  of  life,  feels 
the  exercise  of  its  high  nature  and  equal  to  all  being ; 
its  private  contritions  are  abolished,  and  all  that  was 
temporal,  carnal,  and  accidental  is  burned  away  in  the 
flame  of  the  experience;  it  is  clothed  only  incor- 
ruptibly;  it  is  armed  with  all  power  as  if  issuing 
from  omnipotence;  it  truly  lives.  Thirdly,  the  soul 
is  touched  with  a  certain  mania,  under  the  experience, 
an  enthusiasm,  a  ravishment,  and  this  is  most  marked 


rr.]  THE  ESSAYS  111 

in  the  supreme  cases  as  known  to  us  by  report,  such 
as  the  trances  of  Socrates,  the  union  of  Plotinus,  the 
conversion  of  Paul,  and  similar  experiences  of  Plo- 
tinus,  Porphyry,  Behmen,  Fox,  and  Swedenborg. 
The  influx  of  deity  is  also  variable  in  amount,  and 
exists  in  degrees  of  more  or  less ;  but  its  characteristic 
marks  are  these,  meinorableness,  excess  of  the  sense  of 
life,  mania. 

The  function  of  the  soul  with  regard  to  this  divine 
influx  is  to  receive,  to  be  passive,  to  give  unimpeded 
way  to  the  currents  which  stream  though  it ;  any  use 
of  volition  or  choice  is  an  interference  and  obstruction ; 
absolute  receptivity  is  the  state  of  excellence ;  for  this 
inflowing  is  the  presence  of  God,  is  the  divine  energy 
active,  is  the  dynamic  of  the  soul.  There  are  all  de 
grees  of  it,  in  power.  Those  who  receive  the  most  are 
the  greatest  men ;  those  who  receive  and  also  impart 
the  most  are  men  of  genius ;  those  who  obstruct  and 
fail  of  reception  are  the  wicked,  for  evil  is  simply  the 
privation  of  this  presence  and  power.  It  comes  to  all 
men,  in  its  degree,  and  constitutes  their  true  life. 
The  relation  of  men  to  God,  so  conceived  as  the  "  fast- 
flowing  vigour "  or  stream  of  eternal  being,  is  set 
forth  under  many  images.  The  soul  is  always  open 
to  God  on  one  side,  as  earth  is  open  to  the  infinite  of 
stars.  The  soul  is  like  a  man  behind  whose  head  an 
unseen  spirit  stands  and  puts  forth  its  power  through 
him.  The  soul  is  borne  on  divine  being  as  on  a  stream 
that  enfolds  it  and  animates  it  and  pours  it  forward 
through  all  experience.  The  soul  is  embosomed  in  it 
as  earth  in  the  ether.  It  is  the  Over-Soul  which  thus 
envelops,  penetrates,  and  works.  It  is  adult  in  the 
infant  ;  it  is  all  in  every  man ;  it  is  that  in  which 


112  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAR 

men  have  their  common  nature ;  it  is  the  source  of  all 
wisdom  and  virtue,  power  and  beauty,  genius  and  love. 
It  loves  silence  and  exaltation  ;  it  reveals  and  thrills  : 
it  descends  into  men  with  entire  possession.  The  soul 
is,  indeed,  one  with  this  power,  and  divine  ;  but  the 
Over-Soul  is  the  boundless  surplus  of  the  soul's  own 
nature  ;  it  is  the  infinite  of  the  soul  which  is  made  the 
element  of  the  soul's  being  in  the  finite,  where  it  is  not 
disunited  from  it  but  more  interlaced.  It  is  not,  how 
ever,  by  metaphysical  phrase  that  one  best  enters  into 
the  meaning  of  Emerson,  but  by  his  devotional  spirit. 
What  is  essential  to  be  understood  in  these  passages  is 
the  sense  of  the  divine  nature  and  origin  of  the  soul, 
the  divine  providence  that  attends  it,  the  state  of  di 
vine  trust  proper  to  it,  the  divine  exaltation  of  its 
high  moments  increasing  in  their  ascensions,  the 
divine  power  of  genius  and  love,  the  divine  appease 
ments  of  truth  and  beauty,  the  divine  consummation 
of  virtue ;  and  gathering  this  manifold  and  infinite 
divine  into  one,  the  Over-Soul,  Emerson  did  but  add 
a  new  name  to  the  world-names  of  God. 

If  Emerson's  metaphysical  reminiscences  darken 
counsel  in  his  doctrine  of  the  deity,  other  obstructive 
fragments  of  old  philosophy  are  found  embedded  in  his 
doctrine  of  the  human  soul.  The  soul  is  identical  in 
all  men.  Its  essence  is  divine ;  its  human  constitution 
arises  through  that  differentiation  which  is  the  process 
of  becoming  in  life.  The  soul,  on  the  human  side,  is  a 
bundle  of  faculties,  each  of  which  predicts  its  element 
as  the  fin  of  the  fish  predicts  water ;  it  is  also  a  locus 
or  place  of  images,  ideas,  and  concepts  of  law,  which 
prophesy  their  correlatives  in  the  universe.  The 
faculties  exist  before  their  operation;  the  images, 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  113 

ideas,  and  concepts  also  exist  before  their  development 
in  consciousness,  on  the  dark  film  of  the  soul.  The  idea 
of  latency  controls  the  entire  theory.  The  soul  is  an  un 
developed  potentiality  in  which  lies  folded  the  whole. 
In  its  essence  it  is  a  microcosm  of  God,  for  all  of  God 
is  in  its  divine  substance ;  in  its  phenomena  it  is  a  mi 
crocosm  of  the  world,  "  the  compend  of  time  and  the 
correlative  of  Nature,"  or  in  other  words  all  the  facts 
of  history  preexist  in  the  mind  and  all  of  Nature  is 
already  charactered  in  the  brain.  It  is  but  to  vary 
the  phrase  to  say  that  all  of  humanity  exists  in  every 
man ;  for  each  soul  is  not  only  the  equal  of  every  other 
by  virtue  of  an  identical  nature,  but  each  soul  also 
contains  potentially  the  entire  universe  of  experience. 
Life  is  the  unfolding  of  the  universe  in  it.  The  state 
of  the  sonl  in  life  is  a  flux  of  experience  on  a  ground 
of  unchangeable  reality  ;  on  the  one  side  is  the  infinite 
diversity,  complexity,  differentiation,  particularization, 
specializing  of  life  in  its  extension,  on  the  other  side 
intensively  is  the  centrality  of  the  soul's  indivisible 
self.  The  significance  of  these  various  ideas  becomes 
plainer  by  their  application  in  detail  to  the  process  of 
life.  It  suffices  to  recognize  here  the  general  notions 
of  identity  and  equality  in  the  souls  of  all  men,  of 
latency  of  power  and  of  experience  in  the  soul,  of  the 
microcosm  in  several  phases,  of  the  flux,  and  of 
the  wholeness  of  the  soul  in  itself. 

The  means  by  which  the  latency  of  the  soul  is  un 
folded  is  Nature;  and  here  again  the  miscellaneous 
eclecticism  of  Emerson's  thought  brings  heterogeneous 
elements  into  the  general  scheme,  and  especially 
Swede nborgian  ideas.  The  relation  of  the  soul  to 
Nature  is  parallel  to  its  relation  to  God,  in  that  there 
i 


114  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

is  identity  between  the  two  and  also  operation  of  one 
upon  the  other,  but  the  operation  is  differently  con 
ceived.  It  is  set  forth  sometimes  as  an  inflowing  of 
Nature  from  without  upon  the  soul,  sometimes  as  an 
outflowing  of  the  soul  from  within,  which  is  then 
said  to  create  Nature.  To  the  one  corresponds  the 
metaphysical  conception  of  Nature  as  the  direct  reali 
zation  of  God  in  the  unconscious,  the  divine  energy 
known  to  the  soul  and  acting  upon  it  mediately,  or 
God  as  it  were  atone  remove;  to  the  other  corresponds 
the  metaphysical  conception  of  Nature  as  put  forth 
through  the  soul  and  existing  only  in  the  soul's  per 
ception  or  active  energy.  The  simplest  procedure,  for 
the  exposition  of  Emerson's  thought,  is  to  begin  with 
the  former  view,  under  which  Nature  has  an  apparently 
independent  being.  The  constitution  of  Nature  so  con 
ceived  is  parallel  to  the  constitution  of  the  soul.  The 
doctrine  of  the  microcosm  is  the  first  to  emerge.  All 
of  Nature  exists  in  every  part  thereof,  and  the  universe 
is  thus  represented  in  every  one  of  its  particles  with 
all  its  powers ;  or,  by  a  variant  statement,  every  part 
is  infinitely  related  to  every  other  part  and  by  virtue 
of  these  relations  contains  the  whole.  There  is  thus 
the  same  identity  and  equality  between  the  parts  of 
Nature  as  between  human  souls,  and  each  is  a  micro 
cosm  of  the  universe.  The  idea  of  latency  reappears 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  ascension  of  forms,  that  is,  the 
theory  that  the  evolution  of  Nature  proceeds  by  a  pro 
gressive  metamorphosis  of  lower  into  higher  forms 
which  are  already  contained  and  predicted  in  the  em 
bryo.  The  function  of  Nature  is  to  unfold  the  soul. 
It  does  this  by  virtue  of  the  perfect  correspondence  of 
Nature  to  the  soul.  At  the  contact  of  the  two  the 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  115 

functions  of  the  soul  unlock  and  play  each  in  its  appro 
priate  sphere,  and  also  the  images,  ideas,  and  concepts 
preexisting  in  the  soul  arise  into  consciousness  and 
become  knowledge.  The  mental  series  exactly  tallies 
with  the  material  series.  The  correspondence  of  the 
material  universe  with  the  soul  is  not,  however,  limited 
to  a  mere  identity  in  the  series.  Facts  are  symbols  of 
ideas  and  laws,  wherefore  Nature  is  a  vast  emblem  of 
truth ;  this  symbolical  interpretation  of  Nature  is  the 
larger  part  of  its  signification  to  men,  and  by  it  Nature 
herself,  as  it  were,  ascends  into  mind  and  exists  in  a 
higher  sphere  than  materiality,  that  is,  in  the  sphere 
of  truth.  If  anything  is  dark  in  Nature,  so  that  the 
correspondence  seems  to  halt,  it  is  because  the  faculty 
which  acts  in  that  particular  element  yet  sleeps  in 
man ;  for  the  presence  of  the  soul  with  Nature  is  not 
enough ;  it  must  be  an  efficient  presence,  and  this  effi 
ciency  is  the  work  of  the  Over-Soul  which  has  in  charge 
the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  soul.  The  becoming  of 
the  soul  is  this  process  of  the  energizing  of  its  latent 
power  and  knowledge  by  the  agency  of  Nature  accord 
ing  to  the  will  of  the  Over-Soul.  The  soul  is  not  left 
to  its  own  volition  and  choice,  nor  to  the  casualty  of 
Nature,  but  is  in  the  hands  of  Providence.  The  Over- 
Soul  thus  forever  screens  it  from  premature  ideas,  and 
withdraws  the  veils  only  as  the  soul  is  prepared  for 
new  experience.  When  by  contact  with  Nature  every 
function  of  the  soul  is  perfected  in  action,  when  the 
latent  consciousness  is  entirely  drawn  out  and  exposed 
as  knowledge,  then  will  Nature  be  completely  compre 
hended,  and  the  correspondence  will  appear,  as  it  is, 
perfect;  the  mind  and  the  mind's  image  will  be  one, 
and  will  include  all. 


116  RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

Emerson  brings  forward  quite  as  prominently  the 
other  point  of  view  under  which  the  soul  is  said  to 
create  Nature.  He  observes  that  "the  intellectual 
men  do  not  believe  in  any  essential  dependence  of 
the  material  world  on  thought  and  volition."  He, 
however,  does  not  himself  elaborate  this  view,  and  is 
apt  to  retire  to  the  ground  of  common  sense,  as  if  the 
air  were  difficult.  He  emphasizes  the  view  rather  in 
dealing  with  modifications  and  rearrangements  of  Na 
ture,  as,  for  example,  in  invention,  the  practical  arts, 
and  the  changes  effected  by  history  ;  ships  and  cities, 
a  military  civilization  or  trade,  are  thus  results  of  mind 
and  volition.  The  poet  or  the  artisan,  likewise,  creates 
the  world  he  knows  by  virtue  of  his  selection  of  the  ele-  ; 
ments  to  which  he  attends  and  of  which  he  builds  his  f 
consciousness  with  the  stamp  of  individual  choice; 
this  differencing  of  Nature  in  our  apprehension  of  it 
is  thus  a  result  of  mind.  Emerson  does  not  realize 
the  theory  much  beyond  this  point,  though  he  adopts 
and  repeats  its  easy  formulas.  That  thought  is  prior 
to  fact  is  a  maxim  with  him ;  but  as  he  approaches 
the  point  where  the  elements  of  Nature  are  products 
of  mind  by  perception,  and  so  far  may  be  said  to  be 
created  in  the  act  of  knowing,  he  limits  himself  to  thin 
statements  of  the  commonplaces  of  philosophical  ideal 
ism,  which  principle  did  not  have  so  varied  an  appli 
cation  in  his  handling  as  his  other  fragmentary  meta 
physical  knowledge.  The  phenomenal  aspect  of  Nature 
did  not  really  interest  him  philosophically ;  the  power 
of  religious  faith  was  not  here  brought  into  play  to 
stimulate  and  fortify  him.  It  was  only  the  moral  uses 
of  Nature  that  could  hold  his  attention,  and  such  parts 
of  philosophy  as  he  could  relate  to  these  or  to  religion. 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  117 

What  is  essential  to  observe  is  not  the  character  of  his 
philosophical  idealism  or  the  degree  of  it,  metaphysi 
cally,  but  his  attachment  to  it  as  something  that  gave 
room  to  his  sense  that  the  higher  meaning  even  of 
material  things  is  spiritual,  that  all  men's  works  in 
however  gross  a  sphere  of  the  practical  are  neverthe 
less  operations  of  the  soul,  that  the  soul  is  omnipres 
ent  and  omnipotent  even  in  matter. 

These  are  the  centres  of  thought  in  Emerson's 
philosophy.  Even  so  summary  and  brief  an  exposi 
tion  of  them  suffices,  for  on  the  intellectual  side  his 
philosophy  is  little  more  than  outline.  In  themselves 
these  ideas  have  small  importance,  relatively  to  what 
is  deduced  from  them.  They  are  for  the  most  part 
fragments  of  old  thought  that  have  been  long  in  the 
world,  like  boulders  left  by  the  primeval  streams  of 
man's  intellect.  They  have  not  to  Emerson  himself 
the  positive  value  of  ascertained  truth  which  makes 
up  the  body  of  men's  knowledge;  as  metaphysics, 
psychology,  science,  in  the  real  sense,  they  are  but 
shreds  and  patches.  Emerson  had  a  certain  scorn  for 
truly  scientific  knowledge  akin  to  his  contempt  for 
the  process  of  reasoning,  of  argument  and  logic. 
Science,  in  his  conception  of  things,  lives  in  an  essen 
tially  low  plane  of  knowledge  and  becomes  valuable 
only  when  spiritualized,  interpreted  in  its  symbolic 
senses,  raised  into  the  sphere  of  religion  and  morals. 
Gravitation  as  such  is  a  gross  fact,  but  as  the  symbol 
of  something  identical  with  it  in  a  higher  mode  of 
being  in  the  soul  it  is  a  spiritual  law.  Ideas  of 
physics  and  the  like  are,  therefore,  to  him  mere  raw 
material,  in  their  state  as  scientific  knowledge,  and 
find  their  value  in  an  ulterior  use  as  interpreters  of 


118  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

religion  or  exponents  of  ethics;  they  appeal  to  the 
religious  nature  and  there  deliver  their  message. 
All  these  centres  of  thought  or  ideas  that  have  been 
described,  while  they  truly  give  a  divine  background 
for  the  religious  sense,  find  their  practical  use  in  the 
moral  support  of  life  rather  than  in  the  realm  of  in 
tellectual  truth.  They  are  pegs  to  hang  morals  on. 
That  is  the  more  general  use  he  makes  of  them ;  for 
he  refrained  from  much  development  of  the  mystical 
side  of  the  theory  as  being  rather  for  the  private  and 
unspoken  experience  of  every  man.  Hence,  far  more 
important  than  the  ideas  by  means  of  which  he  did  his 
thinking  are  the  primary  counsels  enunciated  by  him, 
which  have  a  vast  sweep  in  the  realm  of  conduct,  and 
which  he  attached  to  these  ideas,  thus  finding  an  intel 
lectual  support  for  his  ethical  theory.  It  is  in  de 
veloping  these  counsels  that  he  makes  use  of  the  ideas, 
and  he  introduces  the  ideas  essentially  as  subsidiaries 
of  the  moral  theme;  they  are  the  foundations  and 
supports  of  the  structure ;  but  his  mind  does  not  rest 
in  them  intellectually,  however  it  may  have  done  so 
devotionally ;  it  passes  into  the  moral  sense  and  there 
only  displays  its  characteristic  force. 

The  first  of  these  primary  counsels  may  be  termed 
the  doctrine  of  acquiescence.  In  its  simplest  form  it 
embodies  the  command  to  submit  the  soul  passively  to 
the  influx  of  divine  energy  from  God ;  but  in  the  ex 
position  it  receives  a  vast  extension  and  is  made  to 
cover  well-nigh  the  whole  of  life.  The  Over-Soul  is 
not  only  a  vigour  that  streams  incessantly  into  the 
human  soul,  with  higher  and  lower  tides;  it  also 
discharges  another  office  which  is  best  indicated  by 
its  other  name,  the  Over- Will.  It  is  providence ;  and 


iv.j  THE  ESSAYS  119 

under  this  aspect  such  is  its  scope  that  the  human 
will  becomes  insignificant  and  impertinent.  "What 
am  I  ?  What  has  my  will  done  to  make  me  that  I 
am  ?  Nothing/'7  says  Emerson.  "  I  have  been  floated 
into  this  thought,  this  hour,  this  connection  of  events, 
by  secret  currents  of  might  and  mind,  and  my  in 
genuity  and  wilfulness  have  not  thwarted,  have  not 
aided,  to  'an  appreciable  degree."  This  providence 
acts  most  obviously  and  on  the  lowest  plane  by  limi 
tation  fixed  in  environment  and  structure,  in  organi 
zation  that  tyrannizes  over  character,  in  the  forms 
of  the  spine,  the  bill  of  the  bird,  the  skull  of  the 
snake,  in  race,  climate,  sex,  temperament,  in  the  laws 
of  specialization  of  functions,  in  the  use  that  Nature 
makes  of  means.  Here,  in  the  grosser  part  of  the 
field,  Emerson  presents  limitation  as  an  aspect  of 
Nature  herself,  and  calls  it  Circumstance  or  Fate. 
In  the  other  parts  he  refers  the  operation  to  the  Over- 
Will.  It  is  seen  in  the  occurrence  of  events  on  the 
large  scale,  which  are  above  man's  will  and  thrust 
upon  him;  even  when  he  has  an  apparent  share  in 
them,  as  in  history,  his  cooperation  is  slight.  There 
is  less  intention  in  history  than  we  ascribe  to  it,  and 
the  greatest  captains  build  altars  to  Fortune.  It  is 
seen  again  in  the  internal  constitution  of  our  facul 
ties.  The  images  in  the  mind  have  a  rank  that  we  did 
not  give  them,  an  order  independent  of  our  volition. 
Thinking  itself  precedes  the  age  of  reflection,  and 
goes  on  of  itself  in  the  infant  and  child  and  lays 
the  foundations  of  conscious  intellect.  When  we  dis 
cern  justice  or  truth,  we  do  nothing  of  ourselves  but 
allow  a  passage  to  the  beam.  In  the  realm  of  char 
acter  it  is  the  Over-Soul  which  publishes  our  true 


120  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

selves  to  the  world,  above  our  consciousness  and  our 
will.  In  works  of  genius  and  art  it  is  that  which  the 
poet  knows  not  of,  and  the  artist  embodies  without 
being  aware  of  it,  which  is  the  better  part. 

The  Over-Soul  throws  about  man  these  veils  of  the 
unconscious  and  removes  them  at  will.  "God  de 
lights,"  says  Emerson,  "to  isolate  us  every  day  and 
hide  from  us  the  past  and  the  future.  '  You  will  not 
remember/  he  seems  to  say,  '  and  you  will  not  ex 
pect.'  "  There  is  much  contingency,  we  thrive  by 
casualties,  and  our  chief  experiences  have  been  casual. 
The  results  of  life  are  uncalculated  and  incalculable. 
The  individual  is  always  mistaken.  It  is  ill  to  in 
dulge  much  in  design.  All  comes  by  the  grace  of 
God,  —  writing,  doing,  having ;  and  with  his  "  heart  set 
on  honesty,"  he  concludes,  "  I  can  see  nothing  at  last 
in  success  or  failure  than  more  or  less  of  vital  force 
supplied  from  the  Eternal.'7  The  great  error  is  to 
interfere.  Prayer,  in  the  ordinary  use,  is  a  disease  of 
the  will.  Prayer  that  craves  a  private  good,  a  par 
ticular  commodity,  "is  vicious";  it  is  "meanness  and 
theft."  Any  interference  of  the  will  with  our  moral 
nature  vitiates  it.  There  is  no  merit  in  striving 
with  temptation.  The  interference  of  the  intellect  is 
equally  superfluous  and  leads  to  mistake.  Creeds  are 
a  disease  of  the  intellect.  Thus  through  the  whole 
field  of  experience,  in  fate  and  history  and  character 
and  genius,  in  our  faculties  and  their  conduct,  and  in 
the  fortune  of  life,  so  large  is  the  element  of  the 
Over-Will  and  the  unconscious  that  man's  part  shrinks 
to  the  inappreciable.  And  Emerson  concludes  in  a 
strain  often  repeated,  of  which  one  example  will 
suffice,  and  that  much  abridged: — 


iv.]  THE    ESSAYS  121 

"  We  need  only  obey.  Why  need  you  choose  so  painfully 
your  place,  and  occupation,  and  associates,  and  modes  of 
action  and  of  entertainment  ?  Place  yourself  in  the  middle 
of  the  stream  of  power  and  wisdom  which  animates  all  whom 
it  floats,  and  you  are  without  effort  impelled  to  truth,  to 
right,  and  a  perfect  contentment.  If  we  will  not  be  mar 
plots  with  our  miserable  interferences,  the  work,  the  society, 
letters,  arts,  science,  religion  of  men,  would  go  on  far  better 
than  now,  and  the  heaven  predicted  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world,  and  still  predicted  from  the  bottom  of  the  heart, 
would  organize  itself  as  do  now  the  rose  and  the  air  and 
the  sun.  I  say.  do  not  choose." 

Choice  is  a  partial  act.  Obey,  and  let  your  constitu- 
tion  choose,  for  that  is  where  the  divine  currents  flow, 
making  you  to  be  what  you  are,  determining  the  soul 
as  a  whole  toward  its  goal.  In  the  constitution  of  the 
soul  acquiescence  and  choice  are  one,  the  blending  of 
man's  will  with  the  will  of  God,  the  rise  of  spontaneity 
in  the  place  of  human  volition. 

So  the  doctrine  changes  colour  under  our  hands,  and 
by  a  kind  of  metamorphosis  out  of  the  soul's  acquies 
cence  springs  what  is  the  greatest  of  all  the  virtues  in 
Emerson's  scale,  self-reliance,  whose  mode  of  action  is 
by  spontaneity;  and,  indeed,  to  a  reflective  mind  there 
is  a  hard  logic  which  requires  that  what  is  Intuition 
in  knowledge  must  be  Impulse  in  action.  Intuition 
and  Impulse  are  twins ;  they  are  the  Janus  faces  of 
one  image.  Spontaneity  is  thus  a  new  chord  on  which 
Emerson  repeats  the  familiar  strain,  and  remoulds 
the  same  ideas  that  were  employed  in  developing  the 
counsel  of  acquiescence.  He  uses  the  name,  self-re- 1 
liance,  specifically  to  insulate  the  soul,  and  draws  out  • 
more  particularly  the  negative  powers  of  the  virtue  to 
protect  the  soul  against  external  influences.  It  is 


122  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

\from  this  post  of  vantage  that  he  attacks  tradition, 
authority,  and  institutions.  He  rouses  all  the  native 
egotism  of  the  individual.  All  souls  are  equal  one 
with  another ;  and  this  declaration  is  not  a  glittering 
generality,  but  is  most  literally  taken.  It  is  most 
strikingly  exhibited  in  his  attitude  toward  great  men. 
What  Plato  has  thought,  any  soul  can  think.  The 
slip  of  a  boy  in  a  corner  reading  Shakespeare,  knows 
that  the  English  king  was  himself  in  another  form, 
and  has  his  pleasure  in  feeling  this  identity.  Any 
man  is  as  pertinent  as  Homer  or  Epaminondas.  One 
should  not  overestimate  the  possibilities  of  Paul  and 
Pericles  or  underestimate  his  own,  since  all  are  of 
the  same  stock.  The  relation  of  men  virtually  is  not 
with  other  men  but  with  God,  who  is  the  source  of  all 
truth  and  power.  The  soul  radiates  from  God  directly ; 
and  hence  there  is  no  progress  as  a  line  of  descent 
from  great  men,  and  the  race  does  not  so  advance,  but 
character  and  genius  in  later  times  do  not  excel  the 
types  of  the  antique  world ;  and  hence,  too,  it  is  that 
all  great  men  are  seen  to  be  unique,  such  that  none 
could  have  had  a  man  for  his  teacher,  but  rather  is  he 
protected  from  the  over-influence  of  others  and  grows 
up  in  the  shade  and  obscurity.  Each  man  has  some 
peculiarity  in  his  constitution  which  makes  him  a  new 
creature  with  a  value  of  his  own,  and  this  is  sacrificed 
and  nullified  by  deference  to  the  ways  and  thoughts 
of  others.  The  equality  of  the  soul  is  real.  A  man 
does  not  derive  truth  from  Plato  ;  but  from  the  Over- 
Soul  whence  Plato  himself  received  it,  he  too  receives 
it;  for  truth  is  immanent  in  the  mind  and  thence 
drawn  out :  it  does  not  come  from  without,  it  is  latent. 
Authority  therefore  is  only  given  by  the  inward  and 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  123 

private  warrant,   and  cannot  possibly  belong  to  any 
thing  external,  whether  man  or  creed  or  institution. 

This  doctrine  underlies  Emerson's  theory  of  history. 
In  his  view  all  history  is  only  the  private  man's  biog 
raphy  writ  large.  As  the  mind  in  perceiving  Nature 
creates  it,  so  in  apprehending  history  the  mind  gives 
it  reality ;  and  as  all  of  Nature  exists  latently  in  the 
soul,  so  all  of  history  preexists  in  the  mind.  Man  can 
live  all  history  in  his  own  person.  "I  can  find," 
says  Emerson,  "Greece,  Asia,  Italy,  Spain,  and  the 
Islands,  —  the  genius  and  creative  principle  of  each 
and  all  eras  in  my  own  mind ; "  and  again,  "  There 
is  properly  no  history,  only  biography ;  every  mind 
must  know  the  whole  lesson  for  itself,  must  go  over 
the  whole  ground  ;  what  it  does  not  see,  what  it  does 
not  live,  it  will  not  know."  He  conceives  of  history 
not  as  a  series  of  events  in  past  time,  but  as  the 
knowledge  which  the  individual  mind  realizes  in  itself 
in  the  present.  There  is  nothing  more  characteristic 
of  his  whole  mode  of  thinking  than  his  abolition  of 
time,  —  "  This  wild,  savage,  and  preposterous  There  or 
Then."  He  sees  the  denial  of  time,  for  example,  in  the 
quality  of  classicism,  that  is,  that  one  man  seems  to  have 
written  all  the  books ;  in  the  appeal  of  old  truths  and 
ancient  works  of  art  continuously  valid  in  the  soul,  and 
in  the  appeal  of  heroic  actions  to  the  moral  sense  of 
every  generation  and  race.  The  present  alone  is ; 
here  all  Nature,  all  history,  all  truth  are;  in  other 
words,  the  universe  is  totally  comprised  in  the  ex 
perience  of  the  individual  under  the  single  formula  ] 
of  subjectivity.  The  insulation  of  the  soul  is  thus 
complete.  Perfect  solitude  is  its  habitat.  Yet  the 
illusion  of  time  is  so  powerful  that  nothing  is  more 


124  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

important  in  practice  than  to  guard  against  it,  and 
especially  against  those  forms  of  it  under  which  ex- 
ternal  authority  encroaches  upon  the  soul's  domain  by 
means  of  the  fame  of  great  men,  the  consent  of  the 
old  councils,  and  the  powerful  institutions  of  the  race. 
Equally  to  be  rejected  are  the  more  tender  influences 
of  friends  and  comrades,  of  family  and  all  intimate 
bonds.  A  man  shall  preserve  his  integrity  at  any 
cost.  He  shall  be  free  even  of  his  own  past,  and  re 
gard  consistency  as  the  hobgoblin  of  little  minds. 
By  virtue  of  his  identity  with  men  he  is  the  equal  of 
all  others ;  by  virtue  of  his  identity  with  God  he  has 
a  private  and  direct  access  to  all  truth,  beauty,  and 
goodness  ;  by  his  constitution  all  knowledge  is  latent 
in  his  mind,  all  experience  is  there  preexistent,  and 
if  he  will  but  obey  his  constitution,  and  look  for  no 
support  elsewhere,  the  Over-Soul  will  providentially 
develop  in  him  all  that  is  his,  and  bring  to  him  his 
own.  To  believe  on  insight,  which  is  Intuition,  and 
to  act  spontaneously,  which  is  Impulse,  constitute 
self-reliance,  in  the  positive  sense ;  to  reject  the  past 
in  all  its  forms,  as  authority,  and  maintain  toward  it 
a  sovereign  attitude,  is  the  negative  and  precautionary 
side  of  the  virtue. 

Acquiescence,  spontaneity,  and  self-reliance,  never 
theless,  do  not  exhaust  the  active  virtue  of  the  soul. 
Action  requires  another  and  a  crowning  grace ;  it 
should  have  abandonment.  Upon  the  passive  or 
receptive  side  it  has  been  already  observed  that  the 
relation  with  the  Over-Soul  is  characterized  in  the  high 
examples  by  mania,  —  visions,  trances,  epilepsies ; 
abandonment,  in  Emerson's  use  of  the  word,  signifies 
a  corresponding  excitement  on  the  active  side  of  the 


iv.]  THE     ESSAYS  125 

same  relation,  —  a  certain  madness  or  ecstasy  in  the 
energy  put  forth.  The  theory  of  ecstasy,  or  an  obliv 
ion  of  ends  in  the  surplusage  of  overflowing  vigor,  con 
sidered  as  the  method  of  Nature,  has  been  sufficiently 
touched  on  in  a  preceding  chapter.  Nature  instructs 
man  not  only  by  this  general  fact,  but  in  detail.  She 
sends  no  creature,  no  man,  into  the  world  without 
adding  a  small  excess  of  his  proper  quality.  No  man 
is  quite  sane,  but  each  has  some  determination  of  blood 
to  the  head  to  hold  him  to  the  point  which  Nature 
desires.  Over-faith,  over-importance  are  necessary  to 
the  conduct  of  reforms.  In  larger  matters  every  in 
tellectual  man  learns  that  besides  his  own  and  con 
scious  power  he  is  capable  of  a  new  energy  by  aban 
donment  to  the  nature  of  things,  such  that  then  he  is 
"  caught  up  into  the  life  of  the  Universe,  his  speech  is 
thunder,  his  thought  is  law,  and  his  words  are  uni 
versally  intelligible  as  the  plants  and  animals." 
The  poet  especially  speaks  adequately  only  when  he 
speaks  "  somewhat  wildly.''  Men  avail  themselves  of 
such  means  as  they  can  to  add  this  extraordinary 
power  to  their  own,  and  hence  love  wine,  opium, 
fumes,  or  false  intoxication,  and  follow  gaming  or 
war  to  ape  in  some  manner  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
heart.  "The  one  thing  we  seek  with  insatiable 
desire/*'  says  Emerson,  "  is  to  do  something  without 
knowing  how  or  why.  Nothing  great  was  ever  achieved 
without  enthusiasm.  The  way  of  life  is  wonderful ; 
it  is  by  abandonment."  It  is  the  same  on  the  social 
scale.  The  great  movements  of  history  have  been 
the  enthusiasms  of  mankind  for  an  idea ;  the  great 
religions  have  been  "the  ejaculations  of  a  few  im 
aginative  men." 


126  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

Ecstasy,  therefore,  which  attends  any  great  dis 
closure  of  religious  truth  or  the  flood  of  ideas  in  any 
field,  and  which  in  the  poet  and  the  saint  has  its 
most  glowing  individual  force,  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  exceptional  and  dubious,  but  as  fundamental  and 
one  of  the  higher  laws.  "  I  hold,'7  says  Emerson, 
"that  ecstasy  will  be  found  normal,  or  only  an 
example  on  a  higher  plane  of  the  same  gentle  gravita 
tion  by  which  stones  fall  and  rivers  run."  It  is  to 
be  aimed  at  in  conduct,  and  is  only  a  name  for  the 
excess,  or  higher  degree,  of  spontaneity  and  self- 
reliance  and  acquiescence,  the  extreme  of  those,  as  in 
martyrs  and  conquerors  and  prophets,  and  in  men 
who  obey  an  inner  impulse  absolutely  in  spite  of  the 
oppositions  and  appearances  of  things.  Ecstasy,  or 
abandonment,  is  the  measure  of  the  vital  force  of  the 
spirit  in  men,  its  self-assertive  and  self-neglectful 
power ;  and  in  proportion  to  its  fulness  is  its  scorn  of 
consequences.  The  largest  release  of  the  divine  energy 
is  the  end.  Its  sensual  form  is  in  the  orgiastic  sects, 
the  dervish  and  the  rnsenad  ;  its  spiritual  form  is  in  the 
illuminate  of  every  age  and  race ;  its  practical  form 
is  in  the  conquerors  who  follow  their  star,  leaders  of 
crusades  and  scourges  of  God,  men  raised  up  to 
hew  the  heathen  or  advance  the  crescent.  In  lesser 
men  all  those  who  are  drunk  with  a  belief,  or  absorbed 
in  a  faculty,  obey  it.  It  is  the  fatal  drop  which  added 
to  life  makes  it  a  cup  of  intoxication.  Such  is  the 
weakness  of  men  that  few  in  any  age  avail  themselves 
of  the  greatening  power  of  abandonment ;  but  these 
are  those  who  accomplish  the  fates  and  works  of  the 
race,  —  empires,  religions,  poems. 

Thus  the  wisdom  of  life  when  summed  lies  in  a 


IT.]  THE   ESSAYS  127 

complete  and  enthusiastic  surrender  to  God  alone, 
sucli  that  every  thought  and  act  shall  give  free  course 
to  the  divine,  streaming  into  the  soul  and  energizing 
there  under  the  control  of  the  Over- Will.  l£  was  a 
happy  suggestion  of  one  of  Emerson's  commentators 
that  what  he  called  self-reliance  was  God-reliance  ;  for 
the  difficulty  of  the  negation  of  the  egoistic  will,  which 
is  commonly  thought  of  as  the  substance  of  self-reli 
ance,  is  thus  avoided.  The  elimination  of  the  personal 
will,  which  Emerson  advises,  is  strongly  supported  by 
his  doctrine  of  the  indifferency  of  means  to  an  end. 
This  is  a  development  from  the  idea  of  the  microcosm. 
Since  the  soul  contains  the  whole  within  itself  and 
moves  to  its  manifestation  in  knowledge,  it  is  indiffer 
ent  at  what  point  development  begins  or  in  what  order 
the  process  goes  on;  just  as  in  Xature,  all  of  the  uni 
verse  being  in  each  part  and  related  to  every  other 
part,  it  is  indifferent  whether  one  learns  from  this  or 
from  that,  for  finally  the  whole  will  appear.  The  doc 
trine  of  indifferency  is  given  immense  extension  also 
by  the  idea  that  Nature  is  a  symbolization  of  truth, 
and  hence  any  part  of  Nature  can  yield  up  not  only 
natural  but  moral  knowledge  and  be  employed  for 
the  interpretation  of  any  portion  of  the  field.  "  I  can 
symbolize  my  thought  by  using  the  name  of  any 
creature,  of  any  fact,"  says  Emerson ;  and  again, 
"  each  new  form  repeats  not  only  the  main  character  of 
the  type,  but  part  for  part  all  the  details,  all  the  aims, 
furtherances,  hindrances,  energies,  and  whole  system 
of  every  other ;  "  and,  more  broadly  of  human  life, 
"  every  occupation,  trade,  art,  transaction,  is  a  com- 
pend  of  the  world  and  a  correlative  of  every  other. 
Each  one  is  an  entire  emblem  of  human  life;  of  its 


V2S  KAl.ril    WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

good  and  ill,  its  trials,  its  enemies,  its  course,  and  its 
end."  So  the  "  true  doctrine  of  omnipresence  is  that 
God  reappears  with  all  his  parts  in  every  moss  and 
cobweb,"  or  the  "  value  of  the  universe  continues  to 
throw  itself  into  overy  point."  The  universality  of  the 
symbolic  language  thus  makes  the  task  of  the  poet 
easy.  "  The  poorest  experience  is  rich  enough  for  all 
the  purposes  of  expressing  thought  Why  covet  a 
knowledge  of  new  facts?  Pay  and  night,  a  house  and 
garden,  a  few  books,  a  few  actions,  serve  us  as  well  as 
would  all  trades  and  all  spectacles."  The  poet  is  the 
true  scientist  because  he  uses  all  facts  as  signs  and 
4<  rides  on  them  as  the  horses  of  thought/'  What  the 
poet  can  do  all  men  can  do ;  the  universal  language  of 
Nature  is  in  each  word  of  it  a  key  to  all  her  meanings, 
and  the  soul  wherever  it  may  be  is  in  possession  of  it. 
The  situation  of  the  soul  is  therefore  indifferent ;  it  is 
sovereign  and  has  the  full  powers  of  sovereignty  and 
all  the  means  of  knowledge  in  every  place.  There  is 
thus  no  reason  for  preference ;  one  position  in  life  is 
as  good  as  another.  The  doctrine  of  the  equality  of 
souls  is  thus  supplemented  by  the  doctrine  of  the 
equivalence  of  conditions ;  and  these  two  taken  in 
connection  with  the  doctrine  that  the  order  of  the  pro 
cess  of  development  is  a  matter  of  indifference,  make 
a  sufficient  ground  for  the  relinquishment  by  the  soul 
of  any  volition,  properly  speaking.  The  annihilation 
of  the  will  is  brought  about  by  the  denial  of  its 
function. 

Emerson's  name  for  tnis  indifferency  in  circum 
stances  is  the  law  of  compensation.  The  world  is  dual, 
as  is  seen  in  the  general  scientific  fact  of  polarity ;  and 
every  part  is  dual,  since  the  entire  system  gets  repre- 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  129 

sented  in  every  particle,  so  that  "  there  is  somewhat 
that  resembles  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  day  and 
night,  man  and  woman,  in  a  single  needle  of  the  pine, 
in  a  kernel  of  corn,  in  each  individual  of  every  animal 
tribe."  This  duality,  however,  is  only  an  aspect  of 
unity,  for  the  parts  are  fatally  linked,  and  one  cannot 
be  had  without  the  other ;  no  loss  without  the  gain,  no 
wit  without  the  folly,  no  crime  without  the  punish 
ment.  The  divergence,  the  separation,  the  opposition, 
are  only  apparent;  life  is  an  integration  of  the  two 
elements,  and  the  law  of  compensation  lies  in  the 
necessity  of  the  integration.  Man  cannot  have  a  part, 
but  must  take  the  whole.  The  error  of  the  understand 
ing  is  in  thinking  that  the  sweet  can  be  possessed 
without  the  bitter,  the  sensual  without  the  moral,  one 
side  of  nature  without  the  other  side.  Our  action  is 
overmastered  above  our  will  by  the  law  of  Nature, 
which  integrates  a  whole  out  of  the  two  parts,  and  this 
integrating  action  is  Nemesis,  a  power  to  add  penalty 
to  the  wrong-doing  and  a  power  to  add  happiness  to 
the  suffering.  The  law,  however,  does  not  apply  to 
the  soul's  own  nature,  for  in  it  there  is  no  duality ;  it 
is  real  being  and  not  a  part  of  Nature,  and  in  all  its 
affirmative  action  it  creates,  it  adds  to  the  world  ; 
virtue,  wisdom,  are  "proper  additions  of  being." 
There  remains,  therefore,  the  obligation  to  affirm  the 
soul  as  a  power  which  increases,  while  the  modes  of 
its  increase  in  the  special  conditions  that  surround  it 
should  be  left  to  the  providence  that  enfolds  it  and 
flows  into  it  and  determines  its  process  by  a  higher 
law,  —  a  law,  that  is,  above  man's  will. 

The  proper  action  of  the  soul  is  further  defined  by 
what  in  the  lack  of  a  better  name  may  be  styled  the 

K 


130  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

doctrine  of  the  wholeness.  No  part  of  Emerson's 
theory  is  more  fundamental,  and  none  is  more  char 
acteristic.  The  soul  is  not  itself  a  faculty,  like  the 
intellect  or  the  will ;  but  is  that  which  uses  these 
faculties.  If  it  acts  partially  by  one  faculty,  it  is 
liable  to  error ;  but  if  it  acts  with  its  whole  nature,  it 
cannot  err.  This  is  another  mode  of  saying  that  if  a 
man  obeys  his  constitution,  he  will  be  in  the  right. 
Here  is  Emerson's  only  sanction  of  morality;  "  the 
only  right  is  what  is  after  my  constitution,  the  only 
wrong  what  is  against  it."  A  man  cannot  violate  his 
own  nature,  in  any  case ;  but  error  lies  in  setting  up 
one  part  of  it  by  itself.  The  blindness  of  the  intel 
lect,  the  weakness  of  the  will,  begin  when  each  would 
be  something  of  itself.  The  same  idea  is  present  in 
the  maxim  that  there  is  a  descent  when  men  leave 
speaking  of  the  moral  nature  to  urge  a  particular  vir 
tue  which  it  enjoins ;  for  the  soul  lives  in  the  region 
and  source  of  all  virtues,  and  is  above  the  particular 
virtues,  such  as  justice  and  benevolence ;  virtue  in  the 
abstract  is  innate  and  immanent,  it  is  only  necessary 
to  speak  to  the  heart,  and  the  man  "becomes  sud 
denly  virtuous."  In  applying  the  doctrine  what 
emerges  is  a  certain  warfare  or  opposition  of  the  uni 
versal  and  particular  in  life.  The  soul  is  by  its  nature 
universal,  and  is  then  in  the  right  course  when  it 
moves  toward  the  universals,  —  Virtue,  Beauty,  Truth ; 
but  in  life,  putting  on  limitations,  it  stands  in  peril 
by  the  fact  that  it  moves  to  particular  ends. 

Following  the  method  of  ecstasy,  as  has  been  set 
forth  in  treating  of  Nature,  the  soul  like  Nature 
should  be  indifferent  to  ends.  An  end  is  a  finality,  a 
cul-de-sac  of  the  soul,  and  once  arrived  there  the  soul 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  131 

so  far  perishes,  since  all  power  ceases  in  the  moment 
of  repose.  Finalities  are  therefore  to  be  avoided. 
Specialization  of  all  kinds  is  a  sort  of  finality.  The 
man,  as  was  set  forth  in  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Address, 
by  becoming  a  particular  sort  of  man,  a  mechanic,  a 
politician,  a  doctor,  ends  in  so  dwarfing  his  nature 
that  he  becomes  as  it  were  a  tool ;  he  is  no  longer  a 
complete  man,  but  partial  and  ever  growing  less.  It 
is  the  same  with  reforms  and  all  particularities  of 
method ;  it  is  better  not  to  commit  oneself  to  agencies, 
but  to  begin  higher  up  at  the  source  of  reform  by  be 
ing  oneself  a  man  of  moral  power.  It  is  the  same 
with  books :  one  should  not  rest  in  them,  but  out 
grow  them,  and  leave  them  behind.  It  is  the  same 
with  all  works  of  art :  the  best  pictures  soon  tell  all 
their  secret,  and  when  you  have  seen  one  well,  you 
must  take  your  leave  of  it.  It  is  the  same  with  per 
sons  :  our  affections  are  tents  of  a  night,  and  the  heart 
rises  through  them  to  impersonal  loves.  Performance 
and  individual  relations,  in  other  words,  contain  final 
ity  ;  and  if  the  mind  rests  in  achievement  of  its  own, 
or  narrows  its  energies  toward  achievement,  it  becomes 
confined  and  partial ;  or  if  it  rests  in  the  achievement 
of  others,  as  books  or  works  of  art,  it  limits  itself  in 
a  similar  way  and  becomes  bound.  Life  is  a  continual 
freeing  of  the  soul,  the  summing  of  a  total  power. 
We  value  total  qualities  as  we  grow  older,  character 
above  performance ;  and  we  are  disappointed  in  men, 
especially  men  of  genius,  because  their  works  are  not 
a  symphony  of  all  their  powers,  but  the  product  of 
some  overgrown  talent. 

The  quality  of  life  is  not  finality,  but  to  be  forever 
initial.     All   the  virtues   are    initial,  all   thought  is 


132  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

initial;  even  art,  so  far  as  it  has  value,  is  initial  by 
means  of  the  universalizing  power  it  contains.  Hence 
it  is  not  ends  that  count,  not  what  is  accomplished ; 
but  the  value  of  action  lies  wholly  in  the  tendency 
shown,  the  direction  given,  the  increase  of  power 
brought  about,  the  exercise  of  the  soul  in  its  whole 
nature  and  toward  the  sphere  of  the  universal.  That 
sphere  is  very  close.  "It  seems  not  worth  while," 
sa}^s  Emerson,  "  to  execute  with  too  much  pains  some 
one  intellectual  or  sesthetical  or  civil  feat,  when  pres 
ently  the  dream  will  scatter  and  we  shall  burst  into 
universal  power."  It  is  our  servitude  to  particulars 
that  betrays  us  into  foolish  expectations  of  immediate 
changes  in  the  world,  of  regeneration  worked  by  loco 
motives  or  balloons,  by  enactments  of  law,  mechanical 
social  devices,  or  electromagnetism.  This  "hankering 
after  an  overt  practical  effect"  is  an  "apostasy."  "I 
am  very  content  with  knowing,  if  only  I  could  know." 
One  should  not  be  cowed  by  the  name  of  Action,  as 
if  the  mind  needed  "  an  outside  badge,"  a  prayer- 
meeting,  a  great  donation  or  a  high  office,  "to  testify 
it  is  somewhat."  Action,  in  other  words,  has  too 
much  of  the  particular  in  its  nature,  and  enslaves. 
To  escape  the  particular  without,  and  the  correspond 
ing  specialization  and  limitation  of  the  soul  within, 
is  the  path  of  wisdom.  Facts,  ideas,  persons,  as  par 
ticulars,  are  a  clog  and  hindrance ;  they  are  serviceable 
only  as  they  cease  to  be  final  and  become  initial ;  when 
facts  give  up  their  symbolic  meaning  and  the  scientist 
becomes  the  poet,  when  ideas  lead  upward  from  phys 
ical  to  moral  laws,  when  persons  release  our  love  till 
it  leaves  them  and  is  changed  into  worship  of  the 
highest,  when  books  and  works  of  art  and  things  of 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  133 

beauty  enfranchise  us  from  themselves  into  the  uni 
versal  world,  then  they  perform  true  service. 

In  the  flux  of  the  world,  where  all  is  movement  and 
transition,  to  stand  still  is  the  one  peril ;  and  it  is  in 
these  particulars  that  fixation  has  its  seat  and  throne. 
Such  fixation  resides  in  all  creeds,  in  the  person  of 
Christ,  for  example,  in  the  masterhood  of  Aristotle,  in 
the  dominion  of  the  church ;  or  in  pictures  and  statues 
that  make  an  academic  tradition  ;  or  in  science  which 
is  content  to  be  only  classified  knowledge  of  material 
things  ;  or  in  social  reforms  embodied  in  institutions 
and  rules  ;  or  in  the  persons  of  our  friends  to  whom 
we  are  humanly  attached  for  themselves.  But  move 
ment  is  the  law  of  life,  to  go  on,  to  change,  to  ascend. 
The  ideal  aim  is  to  preserve  the  wholeness  of  the  soul 
from  this  dispersion,  and  its  energy  from  this  arrest  in 
particulars  ;  to  value  tendency  above  accomplishment, 
power  above  results,  being  above  doing ;  and  so  to 
seek  after  and  live  in  the  universal  more  and  more, 
where  alone  is  the  infinite  into  which  the  soul 
must  itself  unfold.  What  is  primary  in  the  doc 
trine  of  the  wholeness  is  the  infinite  nature  of  the 
soul,  its  innate  opposition  to  finite  ends  and  finite 
things,  and  the  necessity  it  is  under  to  keep  its  effort 
single  and  its  total  being  directed  away  from  things 
finite  toward  the  universal ;  or  if  it  must  engage  itself 
with  them,  to  pass  through  them  as  temporalities. 

Such,  then,  being  the  nature  of  action  in  its  broad 
outlines,  what  is  experience  ?  It  is  a  swift  succession 
in  which  there  is  an  evanescence  and  lubricity  of  all 
objects,  which  is  "  the  most  unhandsome  part  of  our 
condition."  It  is  a  series  of  illusions,  governed  much 
by  temperament,  as  to  their  character  in  each  indi- 


134  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

vidual,  and  if  deceptive,  yet  educative.  It  is  a  move 
ment  through  moments  and  surfaces,  wherefore  it  is 
wisdom  to  make  the  most  of  every  moment,  to  accept 
the  condition  temporarily  existing,  and  to  live  always 
with  respect  to  the  present.  In  this  general  flux  of 
all  things  and  procession  of  the  moods  of  the  soul, 
the  reality  is  the  unity  within,  the  soul,  which  suffers 
no  co-life  of  anything  else  with  itself  but  escapes  from 
all  partiality,  even  from  personal  love  and  friendship 
and  returns  to  the  universal  and  impersonal,  to 
the  contemplation  and  the  energy  of  God.  The  test 
of  true  living  is  always  on  that  side  of  the  soul  which 
is  turned  toward  the  universal,  not  on  that  which  looks 
to  the  finite,  and  it  contains  a  mystical  element,  a  sense 
of  revelation  and  of  privacy  with  God.  With  regard 
to  the  great  intuitions,  Emerson  describes  the  test 
thus :  "  When  good  is  near  you,  when  you  have  life  in 
yourself,  it  is  not  by  any  known  or  accustomed  way  ; 
you  shall  not  discern  the  footprints  of  any  other  ; 
you  shall  not  see  the  face  of  man ;  you  shall  not  hear 
any  name ;  the  way,  the  thought,  the  good,  shall  be 
wholly  strange  and  new.  It  shall  exclude  example 
and  experience."  With  respect  to  thought,  he  uses 
slightly  different  phrases:  "We  do  not  determine 
what  we  will  think.  We  only  open  our  senses,  clear 
away,  as  we  can,  all  obstructions  from  the  fact,  and 
suffer  the  intellect  to  see.  We  have  little  control  over 
our  thoughts ;  we  are  the  prisoners  of  ideas.  They 
catch  us  up  for  moments  into  their  heaven,  and  so  fully 
engage  us  that  we  take  no  heed  for  the  morrow,  gaze 
like  children  without  an  effort  to  make  them  our  own. 
By  and  by  we  fall  out  of  that  rapture,  bethink  us 
where  we  have  been,  what  we  have  seen,  and  repeat 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  136 

as  truly  as  we  can  what  we  have  beheld.  As  far  as 
we  can  recall  these  ecstasies,  we  carry  away  in  the 
ineffaceable  memory  the  result,  and  all  men  and  all 
the  ages  confirm  it.  It  is  called  Truth."  Or  in  yet 
another  mode  :  "  When  I  converse  with  a  profound 
mind,  or  if  at  any  time  being  alone  I  have  good 
thoughts,  I  do  not  at  once  arrive  at  satisfactions,  as 
when  being  thirsty  I  drink  water,  or  go  to  the  fire 
being  cold;  no!  but  I  am  at  first  apprised  of  my 
vicinity  to  a  new  and  excellent  region  of  life.  By 
persisting  to  read  or  to  think,  this  region  gives  fur 
ther  sign  of  itself,  as  it  were  in  flashes  of  light,  in  sud 
den  discoveries  of  its  profound  beauty  and  repose.  .  .  . 
But  every  insight  from  this  realm  of  thought  is  felt 
as  initial  and  promises  a  sequel.  I  do  not  make  it ; 
I  arrive  there,  and  behold  what  was  there  already. 
I  make  !  0  no  !  I  clap  rny  hands  with  infinite  joy  and 
amazement  before  the  first  opening  of  this  august 
magnificence,  old  with  the  love  and  homage  of  in 
numerable  ages,  young  with  the  life  of  life,  the  sun- 
bright  Mecca  of  the  desert." 

The  act  of  intending  the  mind,  of  persisting  in  the 
contemplation,  of  setting  siege  as  it  were  to  the  di 
vine,  is  the  method  belonging  to  this  knowledge.  The 
issue  of  such  experience  is  into  the  universal.  "  I 
am  born  into  the  great,  the  universal  mind.  I,  the 
imperfect,  adore  my  own  Perfect,  I  am  somehow  re 
ceptive  of  the  great  soul,  and  thereby  I  do  overlook 
the  sun  and  the  stars,  and  feel  them  to  be  the  fair  ac 
cidents  and  effects  which  change  and  pass.  More  and 
more  the  surges  of  everlasting  nature  enter  into  me.  ... 
So  come  I  to  live  in  thoughts  and  act  with  energies 
which  are  immortal."  An  unspeakable  trust  is  begot- 


136  EALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

ten ;  the  soul  is  sure  that  its  welfare  is  dear  to  the  heart 
of  being ;  that  it  cannot  escape  from  good  ;  that  every 
thing  which  belongs  to  it  —  wisdom,  friends,  events  — 
shall  come  home  to  it  by  open  or  winding  passages. 
The  soul  rises  to  the  last  knowledge,  that  of  the  eter 
nal  One.  "  This  deep  power  in  which  we  exist,  and 
whose  beatitude  is  all  accessible  to  us,  is  not  only  self- 
sufficing  and  perfect  in  every  hour,  but  the  act  of  see 
ing  and  the  thing  seen,  the  seer  and  the  spectacle,  are 
one.  We  see  the  world  piece  by  piece,  as  the  sun,  the 
moon,  the  animal,  the  tree ;  but  the  whole,  of  which 
these  are  the  shining  parts,  is  the  soul." 

The  soul,  therefore,  through  Nature,  the  instrument 
of  its  evolution,  is  really  self-evolved,  and  so  intimate 
is  this  union  with  Nature  in  the  operation  that  the 
soul  is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  in  its  energy  from 
the  energy  of  Nature.  The  passage  which  best  ex 
presses  this  holds  in  fusion  many  ideas  that  have 
been  separated  in  this  exposition,  and  well  illustrates 
the  habitual  presence  of  Emerson's  whole  mind  in  all 
he  wrote :  — 

"  Nature  is  the  incarnation  of  a  thought,  and  turns  to  a 
thought  again,  as  ice  becomes  water  and  gas.  The  world  is 
mind  precipitated,  and  the  volatile  essence  is  forever  escap 
ing  again  into  the  state  of  free  thought.  Hence  the  virtue 
and  pungency  of  the  influence  on  the  mind  of  natural  objects, 
whether  inorganic  or  organized.  Man  imprisoned,  man 
crystallized,  man  vegetative,  speaks  to  man  impersonated. 
That  power  which  does  not  respect  quantity,  which  makes 
the  whole  and  the  particle  its  equal  channel,  delegates  its 
smile  to  the  morning  and  distils  its  essence  into  every  drop 
of  rain.  Every  moment  instructs,  and  every  object ;  for 
wisdom  is  infused  into  every  form.  It  has  been  poured 
into  us  as  blood ;  it  convulsed  us  as  pain ;  it  slid  into  us  as 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  137 

pleasure ;  it  enveloped  us  in  dull,  melancholy  days  or  in  days 
of  cheerful  labor ;  we  did  not  guess  its  essence  until  after 
a  long  time." 

This,  if  one  were  to  give  it  a  name,  is  a  kind  of  psychic 
animism. 

Indeed,  it  is  rather  in  his  theory  of  Nature  than  in 
his  theory  of  God  that  Emerson  astonishes  and  per 
plexes  the  mind.  The  language  and  moods  of  pan 
theism  have  been  long  familiar  to  men;  the  eulogy 
of  the  soul,  the  mystery  of  its  states,  its  exaltations, 
are  a  twice-told  tale  in  all  religious  writings ;  but  in 
the  theory  of  Nature,  as  set  forth  by  Emerson,  there 
is  something  less  ordinary,  though  not  without  copious 
illustrations  in  mystical  writers.  It  is  not  that  Nature 
is  presented  subjectively  as  a  modification  of  human 
consciousness,  in  the  formulas  of  philosophical  ideal 
ism  ;  but  that,  within  the  limits  of  subjectivity,  Nature 
is  again  as  it  were  taken  out  of  her  proper  sphere,  and 
by  the  principle  of  symbolization  her  phenomenal 
facts  are  changed  into  truths,  her  phenomenal  laws 
are  transmuted  into  laws  of  morals,  and  her  phenom 
enal  operation  is  held  up  as  a  higher  instance  of  the 
working  of  divine  energy  than  even  the  life  of  the 
soul  as  it  is  lived  by  men.  Nature  in  her  physical  or 
sensational  sphere  is  abolished  in  order  to  become  a 
thing  of  intellectual  and  moral  values,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  soul ;  science  exists  for  religion  and  morality ; 
but  at  the  same  time  Nature  in  her  own  phenomenal 
being  is  represented  as  a  more  perfect  example  of 
the  divine  law  than  is  the  soul's  life  in  the  world. 
Nature  is  perfect  and  is  set  up  as  the  standard ;  or, 
in  Emerson's  words,  "  Man  is  fallen ;  nature  is  erect 
and  serves  as  a  differential  thermometer,  detecting  the 


138  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

presence  or  absence  of  the  divine  sentiment  in  man." 
This  is  the  theory  as  to  Nature  in  general ;  but  in 
every  part  of  Nature  there  is  the  divine  type  which 
the  soul  should  repeat,  if  it  were  to  lead  the  true  life. 
The  passage  which  exemplifies  this  is  that  of  the  rose. 
"  These  roses  under  my  window  make  no  reference  to 
former  roses  or  to  better  ones ;  they  are  for  what  they 
are;  they  exist  with  God  to-day.  There  is  no  time 
to  them.  There  is  simply  the  rose;  it  is  perfect  in 
every  moment  of  its  existence.  Before  a  leaf-bud  has 
burst,  its  whole  life  acts ;  in  the  full-blown  flower 
there  is  no  more ;  in  the  leafless  root  there  is  no  less. 
Its  nature  is  satisfied  and  it  satisfies  nature  in  all 
moments  alike.  But  man  postpones  or  remembers ; 
he  does  not  live  in  the  present,  but  with  reverted  eye 
laments  the  past,  or,  heedless  of  the  riches  that  sur 
round  him,  stands  on  tiptoe  to  foresee  the  future. 
He  cannot  be  happy  and  strong  until  he,  too,  lives  with 
nature,  in  the  present,  above  time.'7  This,  the  rose, 
is  the  ideal  of  life.  The  same  doctrine  is  found  in 
the  apothegm,  —  "  The  rich  mind  lies  in  the  sun  and 
sleeps  and  is  nature." 

With  such  an  attitude  toward  Nature,  it  is  inevi 
table  that  the  theory  of  Emerson  should  sometimes 
seem  on  the  point  of  breaking  its  own  shell.  It  has 
been  observed  that  in  unfolding  ecstasy  as  the  method 
of  Nature  he  found  that  man  could  not  be  regarded  as 
the  final  end  of  Nature,  since  man  appears  too  insig 
nificant  a  result  for  such  a  vast  preparation  of  celestial 
worlds  and  epochs  as  the  universe  exhibits.  It  be 
longs  with  this  that  Nature  as  it  exists  in  other  intelli 
gences,  such  as  the  rat  and  the  lizard,  or  in  other  lower 
forms  such  as  the  fungus  and  the  lichen,  should  seem 


iv.]  THE  ESSAYS  139 

to  Emerson  a  terra  incognita.  "What  do  I  know  sym 
pathetically,  morally,  of  either  of  these  worlds  of 
life  ?  "  History  in  taking  account  only  of  man  writes 
narrow  annals.  "  I  hold  our  actual  knowledge  very 
cheap,''  says  Emerson.  It  is  but  a  step,  under  such  a 
system  of  thought  and  in  such  a  mood,  with  such  a 
stripping  from  life  of  its  human  values  accumulated 
in  time  and  such  a  return  to  simplicity  as  it  is  in 
natural  facts,  for  Emerson  to  add  "  the  path  of  science 
and  of  letters  is  not  the  way  into  nature  " ;  but  rather 
"  the  idiot,  the  Indian,  the  child,  the  unschooled 
farmer's  boy,  stand  nearer  to  the  light  by  which  nature 
is  to  be  read  than  the  dissector  or  the  antiquary." 
To  the  type  of  the  rose  as  the  ideal  of  life,  the  type  of 
the  Indian  as  the  method  of  knowledge,  is  complemen 
tary. 

Besides  the  central  ideas  and  primary  counsels  that 
make  up  the  body  of  Emerson's  thought,  his  general 
philosophy  should  be  viewed  under  a  third  aspect, 
namely,  its  bearings  on  the  actual  affairs  of  men  in  the 
world.  The  Essays  are  stored  with  prudential  wis 
dom  ;  his  mind  ranged  widely  through  the  things  of 
the  common  life,  and  for  this  work  he  was  well  pre 
pared  by  good  intentions,  ripe  judgment,  and  moral 
sagacity ;  moreover,  as  he  grew  older,  he  gave  increas 
ing  expression  to  his  practical  sense  and  brought 
the  speculative  grounds  of  his  views  less  prominently 
forward ;  spiritual  philosophy,  though  he  did  not  hold 
to  it  less  strongly,  gave  place  in  his  later  writings  to 
the  conduct  of  life  in  its  details.  Though  he  was  an 
optimist,  the  view  he  took  of  the  actual  condition  of 
society  and  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it  was  at  no 
time  high,  He  was  not  at  all  blind  to  the  evils  that 


140  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

infest  the  world.  Every  man,  he  thinks,  looks  upon 
his  actual  state  "  with  a  degree  of  melancholy,"  and 
society  is  invaded  by  it  secretly  and  silently  ;  life  wears 
a  mean  appearance  and  is  full  of  things  ignoble  and 
trivial.  The  key  to  every  age  is  imbecility,  a  favourite 
word  with  him  to  characterize  society  and  individuals. 
The  "  fool-part "  of  mankind  is  very  large,  the  male 
factors  much  in  the  majority.  History  has  been  mean ; 
our  nations  have  been  mobs;  we  have  never  seen  a 
man.  Such,  nearly  in  his  own  words,  is  the  general 
view.  In  detail,  the  way  of  providence  is  rude,  as 
seen  in  Nature ;  it  has  a  "  wild,  rough,  incalculable 
road  to  its  end,"  and  it  is  of  no  use  "to  dress  up 
that  terrible  benefactor  in  a  clean  shirt  and  white  neck 
cloth  of  a  student  of  divinity."  There  is  the  snake,  the 
spider,  the  tiger,  other  "  leapers  and  bloody  jumpers, 
the  crackle  of  the  bones  of  his  prey  in  the  coil  of  the 
anaconda,"  and  man,  too,  lives  by  like  habits.  There 
are  earthquakes,  volcanoes,  floods,  the  massacre  by 
disease,  by  plague  and  climate,  parasites,  and  every  where 
jaws,  —  "hints  of  ferocity  in  the  interiors  of  Nature." 
In  society,  the  fate  of  men  has  never  been  more  calmly 
stated  than  in  the  following  words  :  "  The  German  and 
Irish  millions,  like  the  Negro,  have  a  great  deal  of  guano 
in  their  destiny.  They  are  ferried  over  the  Atlantic  and 
carted  over  America  to  ditch  and  to  drudge,  and  then  to 
lie  down  prematurely  to  make  a  spot  of  green  grass  on 
the  prairie." 

The  state  of  religion  naturally  holds  a  foremost 
place  in  his  survey.  "  I  do  not  find  the  religions  of 
men  at  this  moment  very  creditable  to  them."  They 
are  childish,  insignificant,  unmanly ;  know-nothing 
churches  that  proscribe  intellect,  scortatory,  slave-hold- 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  141 

ing,  and  slave-trading  religions,  idolatries.  "  In  our 
large  cities  the  population  is  godless,  materialized.  .  .  . 
There  is  faith  in  chemistry,  in  meat  and  wine,  in  ma 
chinery,  in  the  steam-engine,  galvanic  battery,  turbine 
wheels,  sewing  machines,  and  in  public  opinion,  but 
not  in  divine  causes.  ...  In  creeds  never  was  such 
levity ;  witness  the  heathenism  in  Christianity,  the  peri 
odic  'revivals,'  the  millennium  mathematics,  the  peacock 
ritualism,  the  retrogression  to  Popery,  the  maunder 
ing  of  Mormons,  the  deliration  of  rappings,  the  rat  and 
mouse  revelations,  thumps  in  table-drawers,  and  black 
art."  It  is  the  same  with  trade.  "  The  ways  of  trade 
are  grown  selfish  to  the  borders  of  theft,  and  supple 
to  the  borders  (if  not  beyond  the  borders)  of  fraud." 
The  youth  is  unfitted  for  them  by  genius  and  virtue, 
and  if  he  would  succeed  must  forget  the  dreams  of 
his  boyhood  and  the  prayers  of  his  childhood,  and  take 
on  the  harness  of  routine  and  obsequiousness.  We 
eat,  drink,  and  wear  perjury  and  fraud,  and  all  society 
is  compromised  by  purchase  and  consumption,  so  that 
the  sins  of  our  trade  belong  to  no  class,  to  no  individual ; 
every  one  is  privy  and  an  accomplice.  All  accumulated 
wealth  is  tainted,  and  it  might  be  honester  to  renounce 
it  and  go  back  to  the  soil.  The  soil  itself  is  engaged 
in  the  same  vice  ;  "  of  course,  whilst  another  man  has 
no  land,  my  title  to  mine,  your  title  to  yours,  is  at  once 
vitiated." 

The  state  of  politics  wears  a  like  complexion.  Ameri 
can  radicalism  is  destructive  and  aimless  ;  the  conserv 
ative  party  is  merely  defensive  of  property  while  "  it 
indicates  no  right,  it  aspires  to  no  real  good,  it  brands 
no  crime,  it  proposes  no  generous  policy,  it  does  not 
build  nor  write,  nor  cherish  the  arts,  nor  foster  religion, 


142  KALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

nor  establish,  schools,  nor  encourage  science,  nor  eman 
cipate  the  slave,  nor  befriend  the  poor,  or  the  Ind 
ian,  or  the  immigrant.  From  neither  party,  when  in 
power,  has  the  world  any  benefit  to  expect  in  science, 
art,  or  humanity  at  all  commensurate  with  the  resources 
of  the  nation."  Official  government  falls  into  gradual 
contempt,  and  there  is  "  an  increasing  disposition  of 
private  adventurers  to  assume  its  fallen  functions." 
The  contemporary  socialistic  movement  proceeded  from 
a  feeling  that  government  had  abdicated  its  true  offices, 
that  "  in  the  scramble  for  the  public  purse  the  main  du 
ties  of  government  were  omitted,  —  the  duty  to]instruct 
the  ignorant,  to  supply  the  poor  with  work,  and  with 
good  guidance."  Such  paternalism  is  a  main  function 
of  the  state.  The  government  must  educate  the  poor 
man.  Every  child  must  have  a  just  chance  for  his 
bread.  "A  man  has  a  right  to  be  employed,  to  be 
trusted,  to  be  loved,  to  be  revered."  It  is  not  that 
Emerson  has  any  regard  for  the  masses,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  :  "  Leave  this  hypocritical  prating 
about  the  masses.  Masses  are  rude,  lame,  unmade, 
pernicious  in  their  demands  and  influence,  and 
need  not  to  be  flattered  but  to  be  schooled.  I  wish 
not  to  concede  anything  to  them,  but  to  tame,  drill, 
divide,  and  break  them  up,  and  draw  individuals  out  of 
them.  The  worst  of  charity  is  that  the  lives  you  are 
asked  to  preserve  are  not  worth  preserving.  Masses ! 
the  calamity  is  the  masses."  He  rather  desires  a  re 
striction^  of  the  population  by  government,  were  that 
practicable^  Individualism,  however,  is  the  principle 
that  most  conquers  in  his  theory,  by  virtue  of  which 
he  is  brought  into  strong  opposition  against  legisla 
tion,  governmental  reform,  and  all  varieties  of  socialism. 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  143 

"  The  less  government  we  have  the  better,"  he  says ; 
and  again,  "  the  basis  of  political  economy  is  non-inter 
ference.  Do  not  legislate.  Meddle,  and  you  snap 
the  sinews  with  your  sumptuary  laws.  Give  no  boun 
ties  ;  make  equal  laws ;  secure  life  and  property,  and 
you  need  not  give  alms.  ...  In  a  free  and  just 
commonwealth,  property  rushes  from  the  idle  and  im 
becile  to  the  industrious,  brave,  and  persevering."  As 
to  property,  there  need  never  be  any  fear  for  it.  Prop 
erty  is  a  main  end  of  government  and  follows  character; 
it  is  power  in  the  hands  of  the  powerful  who  therefore 
have  it,  and  will  make  itself  count  in  any  system  of 
government,  for  it  cannot  be  bound ;  but  so  far  as  there 
is  any  question  of  property,  let  amelioration  in  its 
laws  "  proceed  from  the  concession  of  the  rich,  not 
from  the  grasping  of  the  poor."  Eeforms  by  special 
instrumentalities  are  a  chimera.  "  The  Reform  of  re 
forms  must  be  accomplished  without  means."  All 
particular  remedies  are  "  a  buzz  in  the  ear."  Socialism, 
in  particular,  looks  to  an  outward  union,  whereas  the 
only  useful  union  is  purely  inward,  a  likeness  of  nature 
freely  exercised  individually  and  not  by  corporate 
means ;  "  the  union  is  only  perfect  when  all  the  uniters 
are  isolated."  Reform  in  any  case,  and  especially 
legislative  reform,  is  nullified  by  the  law  of  things 
above  our  will.  We  devise  protective  measures,  but 
the  principle  of  population  reduces  wages  to  the  lowest 
scale  consistent  with  life ;  our  charity  increases  pau 
perism  ;  our  paper  currency  and  credits  issue  in  bank 
ruptcy.  It  is  better  to  limit  government  to  the  least. 
It  does  its  best  work  in  assuring  an  open  career  and 
equal  opportunity  for  the  poor,  and  in  guarding  against 
whatever  makes  for  inequality  in  the  conditions  of 


144  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

the  social  strife,  whether  by  wealth  or  privilege  in  any 
form. 

To  establish  the  principle  of  individualism  and 
secure  the  freest  field  for  its  operation  is  the  sum  and 
substance  of  Emerson's  statecraft.  He  admits  of  pa 
ternalism  for  the  sake  of  the  poor  and  to  provide  such 
social  goods  as  are  beyond  the  scope  of  private  means 
only.  He  is  very  tender  of  the  poor,  and  surrounds 
their  state  with  dignity  and  a  certain  idolatry.  The 
whole  interest  of  history,  he  says,  lies  in  the  fortunes 
of  the  poor,  in  such  persons  as  have  extricated  them 
selves  from  the  jaws  of  need  by  superior  wit  and  might. 
The  first-class  minds  have  known  the  poor  man's 
estate,  the  feeling  and  mortification  of  the  poor  man ; 
such  were  Socrates,  Alfred,  Shakespeare,  Cervantes, 
Franklin,  and  the  highest  type  of  man  is  he  who 
knows  the  huts  where  poor  men  live  and  the  chores 
they  do.  The  wise  workman  will  not  regret  the 
poverty  that  brought  out  his  working  talents,  and  the 
future  of  the  world  will  be  best  served  by  the  victories 
of  peace  which  he  wins,  relying  on  good  work  rather 
than  on  cunning  tariffs  to  succeed  in  the  competition  of 
the  nations.  Government  so  far  as  it  helps  in  this 
peaceful  progress,  in  this  open  career  and  free  oppor 
tunity  for  men  and  nations,  is  useful.  But  govern 
ment  as  it  exists  is  a  thing  of  little  respect.  It  rests 
on  force,  but  the  ordering  principle  of  the  world  should 
be  love.  "  We  live,  "  he  says,  "  in  a  very  low  state  of 
the  world."  There  is  nowhere  a  sufficient  belief  in 
the  moral  sentiment  to  persuade  men  "  that  society  can 
be  maintained  without  artificial  restraint  as  well  as 
the  solar  system "  ;  no  man  has  ever  endeavoured 
to  renovate  the  state  on  this  principle.  "I  do 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  145 

not  call  to  mind,  "says  Emerson,  "  a  single  human 
being  who  has  steadily  denied  the  authority  of  the 
laws  on  the  simple  ground  of  his  own  moral  nature." 
Emerson  is  not  tender  of  the  laws.  Good  men  should 
not  obey  the  laws  too  well.  "  The  highest  virtue,"  he 
says,  "  is  always  against  the  law." 

It  is  plain  that,  as  for  him  the  true  church  is  in 
dividual,  each  man  by  himself  in  union  with  the  Over- 
Soul,  erect  and  sovereign  over  the  faith,  so  the  ideal 
state  is  individual,  each  man  by  himself  in  obedience 
to  the  moral  sentiment  within  him,  erect  and  sovereign 
over  his  own  actions.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  he 
describes  the  wise  man,  he  who  "  makes  the  state  un 
necessary."  "  The  wise  man  is  the  state.  He  needs 
no  army,  fort,  or  navy, — he  loves  men  too  well;  no 
bribe,  or  feast,  or  palace,  to  draw  friends  to  him ;  no  vant 
age-ground,  no  favourable  circumstances.  He  needs  no 
library,  for  he  has  not  done  thinking ;  no  church,  for  he 
is  a  prophet ;  no  statute  book,  for  he  has  the  lawgiver ; 
no  money,  for  he  is  value ;  no  road,  for  he  is  at  home 
wherever  he  is ;  no  experience,  for  the  life  of  the 
creator  shoots  through  him  and  looks  from  his  eyes. 
He  has  no  personal  friends,  for  he  who  has  the  spell 
to  draw  the  prayer  and  piety  of  all  men  unto  him 
needs  not  husband  and  educate  a  few,  to  share  with 
him  a  select  and  poetic  life.  His  relation  to  men  is 
angelic ;  his  memory  is  myrrh  to  them  ;  his  presence 
frankincense  and  flowers."  And  again  he  develops  the 
same  ideal  in  a  passage  yet  more  subtly  touched  with 
the  intoxication  that  he  loved,  and  draws  the  portrait 
only  to  lament  that  there  is  no  original :  "  Of  a  purely 
spiritual  life  history  has  afforded  no  example.  I 
mean,  we  have  yet  no  man  who  has  leaned  entirely 


146  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

on  his  character,  and  eaten  angels'  food ;  who,  trusting 
to  his  sentiments,  found  life  made  of  miracles  ;  who, 
working  for  universal  aims,  found  himself  fed  he 
knew  not  how ;  clothed,  sheltered,  and  weaponed  he 
knew  not  how ;  and  yet  it  was  done  by  his  own  hands. 
Only  in  the  instinct  of  the  lower  animals  we  find  the 
suggestion  of  the  methods  of  it,  and  something  higher 
than  our  understanding.  The  squirrel  hoards  nuts, 
and  the  bee  gathers  honey,  without  knowing  what 
they  do,  and  they  are  thus  provided  for  without  self 
ishness  or  disgrace." 

Emerson's  optimism  in  the  practical  field  is  restricted 
to  the  tendency  of  things,  to  that  ascension  that  we 
know  as  evolution,  which  is  a  law  of  the  universe. 
The  organized  world,  he  thinks,  and  the  life  lived  in  it, 
with  the  presence  of  ferocity  in  Nature  and  imbecility 
in  man,  is  the  best  that  is  possible  at  the  moment, 
and  the  evil  elements  are  clogs  of  lower  organization 
from  which  life  is  relieved  in  a  change  to  higher  types 
and  conditions.  This  state  of  the  world  is  at  all 
times  a  melancholy  one.  On  the  other  hand  he  can 
see  no  progress,  due  to  human  initiative,  in  society ;  he 
repeatedly  affirms  the  view  that  social  evolution  is  a 
change  and  not  an  advance ;  and  he  continually  la 
ments  the  fact  that  Nature  is  denied  her  true  heir, 
that  no  complete  man  is  or  has  ever  been.  He  finds 
a  philosophic  optimism  in  the  doctrine  that  all  ine 
qualities  of  social  condition  disappear  in  the  nature  of 
the  soul.  The  passage  is  an  interesting  one  :  — 

"  In  the  nature  of  the  soul  is  the  compensation  for  the 
inequalities  of  condition.  The  radical  tragedy  of  nature 
seems  to  be  the  distinction  of  More  and  Less.  How  can 
Less  not  feel  the  pain  ;  how  not  feel  indignation  or  malevo- 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  147 

lence  toward  More  ?  Look  at  those  who  have  less  faculty 
and  one  feels  sad,  and  knows  not  well  what  to  make  of  it. 
He  almost  shuns  their  eye ;  he  fears  they  will  upbraid  God. 
What  should  they  do  ?  It  seems  a  great  injustice.  But  see 
the  facts  nearly  and  these  mountainous  inequalities  vanish. 
Love  reduces  them  as  the  sun  melts  the  iceberg  in  the  sea. 
The  heart  and  soul  of  all  men  being  one,  this  bitterness  of 
His  and  Mine  ceases.  His  is  mine.  I  am  my  brother,  and 
my  brother  is  me.  If  I  feel  overshadowed  and  outdone  by 
great  neighbors,  I  can  yet  love  ;  I  can  still  receive  ;  and  he 
that  loveth  maketh  his  own  the  grandeur  he  loves.  There 
by  I  make  the  disco  very  that  my  brother  is  my  guardian, 
acting  for  me  with  the  friendliest  designs,  and  the  estate  I 
so  admired  and  envied  is  my  own." 

Mr.  John  Morley,  commenting  on  the  passage,  says, — 
"  Surely  words,  words,  words  !  " 

Optimism  of  such  a  stripe,  in  connection  with  the 
general  and  vigorous  impeachment  of  all  government, 
society,  and  history  which  Emerson  made,  is  not  what 
is  commonly  meant  by  that  term.  It  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind,  nevertheless,  in  reckoning  with  his  criticism  of 
the  world,  that  he  lived  in  a  time  when  the  attack  upon 
the  state  as  defective  on  moral  grounds  was  violently 
made  by  the  best  men,  owing  to  slavery,  and  also  that 
he  had  felt  in  his  own  person  very  keenly  the  ostracism 
and  scorn  of  the  religious  and  cultivated  classes,  and 
this  gives  edge  to  his  retort  very  often  in  dealing  with 
both  church  and  state  and  all  the  subject  of  the  value 
of  the  educated,  protected,  and  conservative  class.  It 
must  also  be  remembered  that  through  the  experience 
of  the  Civil  War  he  came  into  a  firmer  grasp  of  the 
efficiency  of  organized  society  and  the  worth  of  its 
labours.  But  as  in  religion  he  retained  to  the  end  his 
primary  intuitional  faith,  so  in  politics  he  held  to  the 
cardinal  principles  of  individualism ;  personal  freedom 


148  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

was  his  idea  in  both,  and  the  one  leads  in  this  phi 
losophy  to  the  denial  of  any  outward  church,  and  the 
other  to  the  denial  of  any  external  government.  With 
such  an  ideal  and  such  tendencies,  it  was  impossible  for 
Emerson  to  take  an  optimistic  view  of  social  condi 
tions  as  they  exist,  nor  did  he  do  so  ;  his  optimism  was  a 
hope  of  the  future,  so  far  as  it  had  any  practical  form, 
and  was  confined  to  his  faith  in  America,  in  the  gospel 
of  nature,  in  the  ascending  life  of  the  soul  and  in  the 
divine  energy ;  of  their  final  victory  he  felt  assured ; 
but  no  fair  reading  of  the  text  can  present  Emerson  as 
a  practical  optimist  in  his  view  of  things  as  they  are. 
So  far  is  that  from  being  the  case  that  he  is  more 
justly  to  be  set  down  as  a  revolutionary  without  the 
quality  of  action. 

In  its  application  to  individual  life,  Emerson's 
doctrine  gives  results  that  are,  perhaps,  more  indebted 
to  his  sagacity  than  to  his  philosophic  views,  though  the 
latter  are  never  far  off.  It  is  obvious  in  these  essays 
that  he  is  fascinated  by  the  idea  of  power.  He  respects 
the  strong,  the  successful,  and  affirmative  natures,  those 
who  take  the  world  as  they  find  it  and  make  it  obey 
their  will.  He  has  the  liking  for  rude  natures  that 
sometimes  characterizes  the  refined  and  retired  man 
who  feels  the  attraction  of  opposites.  He  acknow 
ledges  a  leaning  to  the  most  forcible  rather  than  the 
most  civil.  "  These  Hoosiers  and  Suckers  are  really 
better  than  the  snivelling  opposition.  "  He  approves 
the  common  opinion  that  "  a  little  wickedness  is  good 
to  make  muscle."  Virile  natures  must  have  some  in 
fusion  of  riot  and  adventure,  some  energy  of  earth  in 
them  ;  they  do  not  come  out  of  Sunday  schools ;  they 
do  not  eat  nuts.  They  have  that  genuineness  and  real- 


iv.]  THE  ESSAYS  149 

ity  which  belong  to  primitive  things,  to  actuality  and 
decision.  Similarly,  Emerson  indulges  the  strong  in 
its  great  types,  such  as  Napoleon,  who  interested  him, 
it  would  seem,  more  than  any  other  man  in  history. 
Power  he  defines  as  "  a  sharing  of  the  nature  of  the 
world  " ;  its  secret  is  to  be  able  to  bring  to  bear  in  your 
stroke  the  whole  force  of  things,  an  obedience  to  law  in 
order  to  use  it ;  and  its  place,  where,  as  it  were,  power 
is  funded,  is  character.  He  defines  character  as  "  the 
moral  order  seen  through  the  medium  of  an  individ 
ual  nature."  So  heroism  in  its  turn  is  "  an  obedience 
to  a  secret  impulse  of  an  individual's  character."  He 
values  aristocracy  and  property  as  effects  and  cer 
tificates  of  power  of  character,  and  gives  them  an  im 
portant  place  in  life  when  they  rightfully  stand  for 
such  power ;  success  is  but  another  name  for  the  same 
thing. 

Emerson  in  no  way  withdrew  from  life.  He  bids  one 
accept  the  conditions,  play  the  game,  take  the  stakes ; 
in  fact,  his  prudential  wisdom  is  mainly  directed  to 
the  winning  of  success,  with  a  caution  that  the  world 
is  not  to  be  conformed  to,  but  braved  and  made  to 
obey  the  individual.  In  working  out  his  counsels  as 
to  wealth  and  economy,  heroism  and  character,  and 
like  subjects,  he  displays  ripe  judgment  and  often  has 
a  Baconian  turn.  In  the  cognate  subjects  of  educa 
tion,  culture,  behaviour,  and  manners  he  shows  the  same 
qualities.  He  thinks  little  of  the  education,  less  of 
the  educated  class  of  the  day;  he  does  not  favour 
travel  in  general;  he  emphasizes  the  element  of  kind 
liness  in  society  and  praises  companionableness.  For 
the  most  part  in  these  practical  discourses  he  deals  with 
minor  morals  and  mundane  phases  of  life ;  but  in  the 


150  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

treatment  there  is  always  some  touch  that  seems  to 
lift  everyday  counsels  into  a  higher  sphere,  to  give 
them  purity  and  light.  He  passes  them  through  all  the 
planes  of  his  thought,  and  character  or  heroism  glows 
red  or  blue  as  he  flashes  one  or  the  other  prismatic 
ray  of  his  transcendentalism  through  them,  and  this 
makes  his  writing  on  these  topics  differ  from  all  other 
men's.  Transcendentalism  appears  very  strongly  in 
the  discussion  of  beauty  and  art.  In  no  part  of  his 
writings  does  he  show  more  impatience  with  perform 
ance,  with  the  result;  as  when  he  declares  all  pictures 
and  statues  to  be  "  cripples  and  monsters,"  and  adds,  — 
"  I  cannot  hide  from  myself  that  there  is  a  certain 
appearance  of  paltriness,  as  of  toys  and  the  trumpery 
of  a  theatre,  in  sculpture."  He  plainly  found  more 
satisfaction  in  natural  landscape  than  in  any  painting, 
and  in  the  postures  of  life  than  in  any  statue.  He 
admits  art  because  he  perceives  its  relation  to  the  uni 
versal,  but  the  fixity  of  art  troubles  and  baulks  him ; 
he  finds  the  quality  of  beauty  to  lie  in  its  flowing 
nature,  and  the  perfection  of  art  to  be  in  its  represent 
ing  "  a  transition  from  that  which  is  representable 
to  the  senses  to  that  which  is  not." 

If  his  analysis  and  praise  of  art  seem  to  some  lim 
ited,  others  will  find  the  transcendentalism  of  the  essays 
on  Love  and  Friendship  a  difficult  matter,  so  far  at  least 
as  he  brings  forward  the  one  ungracious  doctrine  that 
his  works  contain,  the  idea  that  the  soul  should  not  en 
gage  itself  with  persons  except  as  a  means  to  a  life  with 
out  persons.  The  principle  ne  affirms  is  of  Platonic 
origin,  but  Plato  did  not  attach  to  it  the  denial  of  the 
affections.  Emerson  adheres  to  the  essential  solitude 
of  the  soul  and  to  the  ideal  of  an  impersonal  love  of 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  151 

the  great  abstractions  —  Virtue,  Truth,  and  Beauty  — 
as  the  highest  form  under  which  God  can  be  contem 
plated.  He  holds  that  a  higher  love  destroys  a  lower 
love ;  no  bond  can  keep  the  heart  faithful  to  the 
lower  after  the  call  of  the  higher.  We  thus  outgrow 
our  friends,  and  abandon  them.  He  maintains  that 
"  love  is  only  the  reflection  of  a  man's  own  worthiness 
from  other  men";  that  "friends  such  as  we  desire 
are  dreams  and  fables " ;  that,  like  books,  "  I  would 
have  them  where  I  can  find  them,  but  I  seldom  use 
them  " ;  that  friends  "  descend  to  meet  "  ;  that  one 
should  love  his  superiors  and  cannot  love  his  infe 
riors  ;  and  that  the  use  of  friends  is  to  assist  us  through 
love  of  the  perfection  of  being  in  them  to.  love  of  im 
personal  being,  so  that  when  we  have  found  their 
limitations  and  therefore  cease  to  be  interested  in  them, 
we  are  emancipated  from  the  temporary  personal  attach 
ment  and  become  free  and  alone  in  the  love  of  God. 
In  these  two  essays  the  divine  ichor  seems  to  take  the 
place  of  man's  blood;  yet  both  are  remarkable  for 
their  tenderness  and  a  certain  purity  of  high  feeling 
and  proud  and  reverent  honour  done  to  human  nature, 
and  are  characterized  by  a  singular  nobility  in  their 
detached  thoughts. 

To  complete  the  general  view  of  Emerson's  philoso 
phy,  it  is  necessary  to  take  notice  of  what  he  elimi 
nated.  The  most  important  of  the  eliminations  was 
what  he  designated  as  Hebraism ;  that  is,  religious 
truth  of  former  times  arrested  and  fixed  in  sacred 
symbols,  in  creeds  and  persons  ;  and,  in  particular,  the 
authority  of  Christ,  the  Apostles  and  saints.  The 
entire  Christian  rnythos,  including  the  conception  of 
God  and  the  dogma  of  the  church  with  all  its  rites 


152  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  discipline,  was  rejected  as  belonging  to  the 
past,  dead  in  spirit,  and  now  an  obstacle  to  the  direct 
and  infinite  life  of  the  soul  with  the  divine.  Emer 
son  also  discarded  what  he  designated  as  Gothi- 
cism ;  that  is,  the  doctrine  of  suffering  as  a  religious 
element,  whether  as  sacrifice  or  as  divine  vengeance 
on  the  soul  after  death.  He  eliminated,  again,  the 
idea  of  sin,  or  evil.  Under  his  affirmations  of  the 
universal  operation  of  the  divine  in  the  soul  and  in 
Nature  there  was  no  room  for  evil  in  the  universe; 
it  could  be  only  the  privation  of  good,  and  negative. 
It  is  true  that  Emerson  saw  the  scourges  of  life,  both 
natural  and  moral ;  but  he  interpreted  them  as  means 
of  good  in  one  or  another  way,  arid  as  transition  states 
in  an  ascending  series,  which  perished  each  in  the 
birth  of  the  next  higher.  Barbarism  is  largely  a 
matter  of  perspective;  and  as  we  now  describe  past 
usages  as  barbarous,  so  future  ages  will  term  our 
own  manners  and  customs  and  ideas.  It  is  because 
of  his  attitude  toward  evil  that  Emerson  is  called  an 
optimist.  He  was  shut  in  a  theory  which  allowed  no 
other  course,  and  he  was  not  interested  in  the  subject 
itself.  In  practical  moral  life  he  declared  against 
penitence  and  remorse ;  one  should  forget  the  sin 
committed  and  not  waste  time  and  force  over  the 
dead  past;  nature  was  unrepentant,  and  so  should 
man  be.  He  eliminated  also  prayer ;  but  when  a  man 
of  so  spiritual  and  devout  a  nature  omits  prayer  from 
life,  it  is  because  he  has  found  some  other  attitude 
more  consonant  with  his  soul,  and  in  Emerson's  case 
it  was  an  attitude  of  complete  trust  in  the  divine 
and  adoration  of  its  presence.  The  fact  remains  that 
prayer  as  an  appeal  makes  no  part  of  life  as  he  con- 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  153 

ceived  it,  or  of  man's  attitude  to  God.  Lastly  he 
eliminated  immortality.  He  does,  indeed,  discuss 
somewhat  academically  the  question  of  conscious  ex 
istence  after  death,  but  his  heart  is  little  in  it.  To 
him  the  impersonal  and  unconscious  in  the  universe 
was  far  more  than  the  personal  and  intelligent,  for 
these  last  pertain  only  to  life  and  even  there  they  are 
only  for  man.  The  character  of  man's  being  after 
death  was  of  as  little  interest  as  that  of  his  being 
before  birth.  The  obsession  of  Emerson's  mind  with 
the  idea  of  the  presentness  of  life  at  every  moment  — 
which  was  only  the  finite  form  and  equivalent  of  the 
idea  of  its  eternal  being  —  the  conception,  that  is,  of 
the  soul  as  "  above  time "  in  its  essence,  even  in  its 
mortal  state,  was  so  great  as  to  leave  no  room  for 
the  idea  of  immortality  or  the  prolongation  of  person 
ality  beyond  the  change  of  death.  These  eliminations 
of  the  Christian  mythos  in  all  its  defined  forms,  and 
of  sin,  prayer,  and  immortality,  set  Emerson  apart 
from  Christian  writers.  It  may  be  that  to  some,  and 
possibly  to  an  increasing  number,  his  ideas  with  re 
gard  to  sin,  prayer,  and  immortality  may  seem  to 
belong  to  a  higher  state  of  moral  being  and  spiritual- 
mindedness  than  the  traditionary  beliefs ;  if  it  be  so, 
he  would  still  be  related  to  Christianity  only  as  Stoi 
cism  was  to  popular  pagan  religion. 

What  emerges  from  these  doctrines  of  identity, 
blending  God,  Nature,  and  the  soul,  and  of  equiva 
lences  making  the  whole  equal  to  every  particle  and 
every  particle  to  the  whole,  and  of  the  universals, 
Virtue,  Truth,  and  Beauty,  with  the  great  counsels 
of  Intuition  and  Impulse  as  the  rule  of  life,  is  after 
all  the  simple  infinity  of  the  soul.  That  is  the  text, 


164  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  the  rest  is  comment.  The  life  of  the  soul  as 
known  to  us  is  indeed  but  an  infinitesimal  arc ;  but  it  is 
enough  to  show  us  the  infinity  of  the  curve.  The  soul 
does  not  exist  by  doing  nor  rest  in  attainment,  but  lives 
by  being ;  so  to  be  is  the  prerequisite  of  either  so  to  do 
or  so  to  know.  The  soul  seeks  its  end  in  an  infinity  of 
pure  power.  Miracle  is  the  base  of  the  whole  scheme ; 
it  rests  on  miracle.  Nature  is  the  hieroglyphic  of  God, 
and  the  soul  is  the  palimpsest  of  God  ;  and  one  writ 
ing  translates  the  other,  and  the  meaning  is  God.  The 
idea  of  law,  as  it  is  modernly  conceived  in  science,  gives 
the  conception  of  necessity  to  the  operation  of  the 
divine  energy,  and  pervades  the  whole  of  the  thought 
under  the  non-scientific  disguise  of  religion  and  mo 
rality.  Emerson's  doctrines  of  optimism,  acquiescence, 
impulse,  evolution,  are  all  held  within  the  limits  of, 
and  largely  result  from,  this  primary  conception  of  a 
supreme  and  necessary  order  above  man's  will.  The 
idea  of  the  divine  energy,  as  in  all  pantheistic  systems, 
necessarily  empties  life  of  human  energy,  or  tends 
to  do  so;  and  hence  the  misprision  of  the  will,  the 
intellect  and  the  affections,  of  science  and  art,  of 
literature  and  institutions,  is  an  integral  part  and  not 
merely  a  corollary  or  incident  of  the  doctrine.  Viewed 
more  nearly,  the  doctrine  denies  the  church  and  the 
state,  and  sets  up  the  sovereignty  of  the  individual  soul 
in  all  things  of  belief  and  conduct  as  a  court  without 
appeal,  self-sufficing  and  self-executing.  Its  general 
tendency  is  destructive,  and  in  its  affirmations  it  often 
leads  to  dubious  ground ;  anarchy,  theosophy,  and 
Christian  Science  find  many  comforting  texts  scattered 
through  these  works,  and  minds  not  held  in  restraint 
by  such  a  constitution  as  Emerson  had  may  find  strange 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  155 

uses  for  his  thought ;  for  Emerson's  constitution  acted 
as  a  safety  valve  for  what  was  dubious  in  the  doctrine. 
The  doctrine,  it  must  be  allowed,  is  anti-Christian, 
anti-scientific,  and  anti-social ;  but  in  many  instances 
these  have  been  historically  traits  of  religious  doctrine. 
Christianity  was  itself  against  pagan  gods  and  Hebrew 
formalism,  broke  the  career  of  the  human  reason,  and 
gave  a  blow  to  its  scientific  development  from  which 
civilization  recovered  only  after  centuries  and  with 
difficulty;  and  it  also  contained  a  challenge  to  the 
kingdom  of  this  world  which  though  turned  aside 
still  persists  in  its  theory  and  gave  justification  to 
Emerson's  taunt,  —  "  every  Stoic  was  a  Stoic,  but  in 
Christendom  where  is  the  Christian  ?  "  From  every 
point  of  view  it  is  a  religious  doctrine  that  Emerson 
elaborated,  and  he  so  maintained  it.  Platonism  lies 
back  of  its  divine  metaphysics;  Montaigne  offered  a 
model  for  its  free  inquiries  and  its  personal  base ; 
Plutarch  and  Bacon  are  back  of  its  practical  and  moral 
human  nature.  The  general  view  discloses  otherwise 
its  heterogeneous  and  eclectic  composition  intellectu 
ally,  and  its  imperfect  culture ;  but  if  Emerson  read 
few  books,  he  remains  an  example  of  how  a  few  great 
books  can  be  read  to  great  ends. 

If  it  be  asked  as  to  the  truth  of  the  doctrine,  the 
wiser  course  is  to  allow  their  will  to  the  disciples  of 
Emerson  and  those  who  loved  and  honoured  him  and 
heard  him  gladly  in  their  life,  and  who  troubled  them 
selves  little  as  to  his  ideas  but  bathed  their  spirits  in 
his  influence.  Truth,  too,  in  religion,  has  never  been 
essential,  in  the  sense  of  ascertained  knowledge,  but 
large  mixtures  of  known  error  have  been  quite  consist 
ent  with  great  serviceableness.  The  doctrine,  what- 


156  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

ever  be  its  truth,  has  high  moral  qualities.  It  is  very 
free,  and  gives  the  mind  leave  to  knock  off  all  shackles 
of  tradition  and  authority,  and  sets  an  example  in  so 
doing.  It  is  very  brave,  and  enjoins  upon  the  soul  all 
the  perils  of  non-conformity  and  loneliness  with  only 
itself  for  counsellor  and  friend,  for  comfort  and  succour. 
It  is  very  inspiring,  and  in  hearts  of  a  natural  courage 
and  vitality  it  rouses  all  their  force  and  looses  all  their 
heat  by  giving  rein  to  enthusiasm.  It  is  thus  a  power 
ful  dissolvent,  and  a  mighty  stimulant.  It  is  the  ally 
of  all  revolution.  By  these  qualities  it  has  worked 
upon  men  in  a  time  adapted  to  such  counsels  and  in  a 
country  to  whose  instincts  of  freedom  and  power,  of 
individualism  and  construction,  of  democracy  and  prog 
ress,  it  strongly  appeals,  being  indeed  one  with  these 
instincts  and  the  product  of  them.  It  is  true  that  its 
ideal  man,  in  whom  only  the  doctrine  would  be  con 
summated,  nowhere  appears  and  may  never  appear; 
but  the  American  ideal  of  manhood  is  stamped  with 
these  qualities  of  freedom,  bravery,  and  self-sover 
eignty,  in  which  the  power,  as  distinguished  from  the 
tenets,  of  the  doctrine  consists.  The  teaching  of  Em 
erson  is  formative  of  great  qualities  in  the  nation, 
combining  with  ten  thousand  other  influences  that 
there  work  for  a  conscious  ideal  of  manhood.  It  must 
be  added,  too,  that  Emerson  himself  lived  by  this  doc 
trine  ;  nothing  is  more  evident  than  that  it  is  the  truth, 
to  use  his  phrase,  according  to  his  constitution;  and 
in  it  he  stamped  an  image  of  himself  that  is  better 
than  biography,  better  even  than  autobiography  —  it 
is  the  man.  And  here  again  by  the  features  of  this 
doctrine,  its  mingling  of  physics  and  being,  its  divorce 
from  Christian  mythology,  its  freedom  from  past  civili- 


iv.]  THE   ESSAYS  157 

zation,  its  priority  to  science  and  logic,  its  truly  primi 
tive  method  of  thought  in  conducting  the  mind  still 
untrained  and  still  grasping  knowledge  imperfectly,  one 
is  reminded  of  the  early  sages  of  Greece,  such  men  as 
Empedocles  at  Acragas.  In  the  uneven  development 
of  the  human  mind,  in  its  brief  progress  and  casual 
fortunes,  it  must  happen  that  analogous  types  should 
be  repeated  in  far  different  ages  and  races ;  and  the 
position  that  Emerson  occupied  was  not  essentially  so 
different  from  that  of  the  Ionian  sage.  Emerson  was 
a  self-isolated  thinker,  and  intellectually  the  creature 
of  his  religious  moods. j  The  Essays  are  not  a  book 
of  knowledge,  of  science,  of  reason,  of  civilization  in 
orderly  development  through  the  institutional  life  of 
man  and  the  slow  ascertainment  of  truth  by  the  hard 
joint  labour  of  many  minds ;  they  are  a  book  of  religion,  j 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    POEMS 

EMERSON,  as  has  been  said,  was  fundamentally  a 
poet  with  an  imperfect  faculty  of  expression.  By  no 
means  a  perfect  master  of  prose,  he  was  much  less  a 
master  of  the  instrument  of  verse;  yet  the  same  quali 
ties  appear  in  his  work  of  both  kinds,  and  as  the  ex 
cellence  of  his  prose  lies  in  the  perfect  turn  of  short 
sentences  and  in  brief  passages  of  eloquence,  so  the 
excellence  of  his  verse  lies  in  couplets  and  quatrains 
and  brief  passages  of  description  or  feeling.  He  owes 
much  in  both  kinds  to  his  quotability,  or  the  power 
with  which  his  thought  in  its  best  and  most  condensed 
expression  sinks  into  the  mind  and  haunts  the  mem 
ory.  He  was  indifferent  to  the  technical  part  of  verse, 
but  this  was  because  of  an  incapacity  or  lack  of  gift 
for  it ;  he  was  not  careless,  and  his  verse  was  brooded 
over,  turned  in  his  mind  and  rewrought  in  his  study, 
and  what  he  published  was  generally  the  last  and  long 
deferred  result  of  such  power  of  expression  as  he  was 
capable  of ;  he  was  inartistic  by  necessity.  He  had 
no  constructive,  but  only  an  ejaculatory,  genius ;  and 
all  that  belongs  to  construction  and  depends  upon  it, 
such  as  dramatic  power,  for  example,  he  was  deficient  in. 
His  verse  on  the  prosaic  level  of  simple  observation  is 
descriptive,  and  becomes  lyrical  when  melted  by  ten 
derness  of  feeling  or  set  aglow  by  patriotic  fervour  or 

158 


CHAP,  v.]  THE   POEMS  159 

fired  and  expanded  by  a  philosophical  thought.  The 
movement  is,  on  the  lowest  plane,  often  Wordswor- 
thian,  and  in  the  lesser  odes  has  the  fall  and  termi 
nal  slides  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  at  the  highest 
is  apt  to  be  of  the  sort  that  is  best  called  runic.  The 
technical  quality  of  it  is  immaterial,  and  should  be 
neglected  and  forgotten,  so  far  as  possible ;  its  value 
lies  in  its  original  power  of  genius  and  owes  little  to 
the  forms.  The  matter  itself  is  often  dark  and  even 
unintelligible  without  a  previous  understanding  of  the 
thought  which  is  the  key  to  the  meaning  ;  and  this  key 
must  be  sought  in  the  Essays. 

The  Poems  are  a  more  brief  and  condensed  form  of 
the  Essays,  in  many  respects  a  far  finer  form,  and  for 
that  reason  they  appeal  less  broadly  to  men.  The 
thought  gains  in  brilliancy  and  external  beauty  by 
being  given  under  the  forms  of  imagination ;  and  be 
sides  this  it  is  mixed  in  the  poems  with  Emerson's 
personality  in  a  more  intimate  and  familiar  way,  and 
is  blended  with  his  daily  life  and  human  concerns. 
The  Poems  are  autobiography  in  a  very  strict  sense. 
Here,  in  verse,  Emerson  was  most  free  ;  he  did  not 
consult  his  audience  at  all,  as  in  prose  he  was  more  or 
less  bound  to  do,  and  he  was  really  not  aware  of  any 
audience,  but  wrote  purely  to  please  himself.  He  was 
the  very  type  of  a  private  man  at  heart,  and  always 
mixed  with  the  world  under  protest  and  by  the  strict 
compulsion  of  life.  He  would  have  preferred  to  re 
main  in  his  garden  and  the  adjoining  fields  and  woods, 
to  live  with  nature  and  to  the  soul,  and  let  the  world 
go  by.  He  managed  his  life  so  as  to  command  much 
leisure  of  this  sort,  to  be  a  vagabond  of  the  day  with 
the  plants  and  birds,  the  woods  and  quiet  streams,  the 


160  RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

sky  and  the  distant  mountain,  and  to  come  home  laden 
with  natural  thoughts  as  a  bee  with  honey,  or  laden 
only  with  the  peace  of  his  own  soul.  He  spent  much 
time  in  this  loitering  and  revery  and  apparent  empti 
ness  of  mind,  happy  with  the  heat  and  the  quiet  and 
the  bloom  of  things,  or  pleased  with  the  snowy  silence 
under  the  winter  pines  ;  and  the  Poems  are  the  fruit 
of  this  long  leisure,  slowly  matured  from  the  sponta 
neous  germs  but  tended  with  all  a  poet's  love  for  his 
own.  As  has  been  noticed  he  had  formed  an  ideal 
poet,  who  stood  for  this  poet  in  him,  another  and 
higher  self,  and  named  him  Osman,  and  quoted  from 
him  in  his  prose ;  but  in  his  verse  he  was  that  poet, 
and  gave  him  other  names  there  ;  and  this  self,  secret 
and  private  and  most  dear  to  him,  whose  life  was  that 
of  the  roamer  of  nature,  is  the  bard  who  uses  the 
wind,  the  pine  tree,  and  Monadnock,  snowstorm  and 
seashore,  the  chemic  heat  and  the  solar  blaze,  as  the 
strings  of  his  lyre. 

He  was  a  poet  of  both  the  soul  and  Nature,  but  in 
his  verse  Nature  enters  more  largely  and  for  its  own 
sake.  Even  in  his  prose  no  passages  are  more  felici 
tous  or  more  sweetly  abide  in  the  memory  than  his 
incidental  description  of  landscape  or  the  weather. 
The  weather  was  always  interesting  to  him,  and  some 
of  his  happiest  lines  contain  no  more  than  the  qualities 
of  the  atmosphere.  His  senses  were  deeply  engaged 
with  the  visible  and  audible  world.  He  was  a  minute 
observer,  and  loved  Nature  in  detail,  one  might  almost 
say  without  selection  at  all.  The  "  turtle  proud  with  his 
golden  spots  "  is  as  dear  as  a  nightingale  to  him.  This 
gives  that  homely  quality  to  his  local  description  which 
is  a  large  part  of  its  power  to  please  and  to  cling  to  the 


v.]  THE   POEMS  161 

mind.  In  marking  the  traits  of  the  spring  he  notices 
the  footprint  left  in  thawing  ground  and  the  loosened 
pebble  that  "  asks  of  the  urchin  to  be  tost" ;  and  in  the 
lament  for  the  death  of  his  little  boy  he  recalls  the 
painted  sled,  the  "  ominous  hole  he  dug  in  the  sand," 
the  poultry  yard,  the  shed,  the  wicker  wagon  frame  that 
needed  mending ;  by  such  everyday  and  prosaic  detail 
he  arrives  at  a  truth  of  rendering  that  is  invaluable 
to  him  in  describing  the  New  England  scene.  This 
quality  tells,  especially,  in  all  that  portion  of  his  verse 
which  is  in  low  relief,  and  in  the  simplest  and  easily 
intelligible  poems  such  as  the  fable  of  the  squirrel  and 
the  anecdote  of  the  titmouse ;  and  by  it  he  is  quite  the 
equal  of  Whittier  for  locjUjgoloiir  and  of  Thomson  for 
general  truth  to  the  actual  features  of  a  near  scene. 
In  this  sort  of  description  he  keeps  near  the  ground 
and  loves  veracity  and  enjoys  the  thing  he  sees,  and 
imagination  seldom  enters  to  touch  or  transform  the  ob 
ject  of  sense ;  but  if  it  does  so  enter,  it  appears  in  an 
original  and  surprising  way,  of  which  there  is  no  better 
instance  than  the  following  transformation  of  the  phe 
nomenon  of  the  gradual  lengthening  of  the  days  as 
spring  comes  on :  — 

"  I  saw  the  bud-crowned  Spring  go  forth, 
Stepping  daily  onward  north 
To  greet  staid  ancient  cavaliers 
Filing  single  in  stately  train. 
And  who,  and  who  are  the  travellers  ? 
They  were  Night  and  Day,  and  Day  and  Night, 
Pilgrims  wight  with  step  forthright. 
I  saw  the  Days  deformed  and  low, 
Short  and  bent  by  cold  and  snow  ; 
The  merry  Spring  threw  wreaths  on  them, 
Flower-wreaths  gay  with  bud  and  bell  ; 


162  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

Many  a  flower  and  many  a  gem, 

They  were  refreshed  by  the  smell, 

They  shook  the  snow  from  hats  and  shoon, 

They  put  their  April  raiment  on  ; 

And  those  eternal  forms, 

Unhurt  by  a  thousand  storms, 

Shot  up  to  the  height  of  the  sky  again, 

And  danced  as  merrily  as  young  men." 

Imagination  with  Emerson  usually  is  set  in  motion 
by  some  philosophic  thought  or  by  the  presence  of 
something  elemental  in  the  scene.  His  mind  ex 
pands  with  the  greatness  of  what  is  before  him,  and 
reaches  a  loftier  height  even  when  he  is  still  in  the 
region  of  description,  as,  for  example,  in  the  Snow 
Storm,  equally  admirable  as  a  picture  of  human  home 
and  of  the  wild  grandeur  of  Nature ;  but  the  best 
instance  of  imaginative  description  on  a  grand  scale 
is  the  Sea  Shore,  in  which  a  noble  eloquence,  which 
was  born  in  prose  and  is  more  often  to  be  found  there 
as  it  might  be  in  Hooker  or  More,  has  taken  eagle's 
wings  to  itself  and  soars  with  swift  circles  each  higher 
by  a  flight.  It  is  a  sublime  passage,  and  has  scrip 
tural  quality,  and  the  English  poems  that  can  be  so 
described  are  numbered  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand; 
it  is  so  biblical  that  it  seems  more  like  prose  than 
verse.  To  give  a  loose  to  his  genius  in  this  way 
Emerson  requires  the  amplest  sphere,  the  scenery  of 
space,  and  the  stage  of  long-lapsing  time.  A  good 
example  in  the  purely  physical  sphere  is  the  image 
of  the  earth  swimming  in  space,  of  which  he  was 
fond:  — 

"this  round,  sky-cleaving  boat 
Which  never  strains  its  rocky  beams  ; 
Whose  timbers,  as  they  silent  float, 
Alps  and  Caucasus  uprear, 


v.]  THE   POEMS  163 

And  the  long  Alleghanies  here, 
And  all  town-sprinkled  lands  that  be, 
Sailing  through  stars  with  all  their  history." 

Nature  as  an  element,  however,  is  more  apt  to  take 
on  the  atomic  form  in  this  verse  and  to  be  chemistry. 
Emerson  always  thinks  of  the  process  of  Nature  as  a 
dance  of  atoms,  and  he  reduces  to  the  same  image  all 
her  matings  and  pairings,  her  correspondences  and  flow 
under  every  aspect,  and  sees  the  sphere  in  all  its  parts 
as  rhythmical  movement,  and  tune,  and  rhyme,  as  if 
the  stars  still  sang  together  as  at  creation  and  the 
life  of  the  universe  were  a  Bacchic  dance.  He  con 
ceives  the  energy  of  Nature  as  a  Dion^siac  force, 
with  overflow  and  intoxication  in  it,  and  his  imagina 
tive  symbols  for  it  are  all  of  this  order.  This  incor 
poration  of  the  atomic  theory  in  his  thought  of  the 
world,  and  also  the  large  prominence  he  gives  to  the 
idea  of  evolution  in  general,  and  his  use  of  scientific 
terms  of  detail,  give  to  his  poetry  a  characteristic  tone 
and  colour  sympathetic  with  the  age.  Science,  indeed, 
may  be  said  to  enter  into  the  surfaces  and  imagery  of 
his  poetry  as  an  integral  part ;  few  poets  have  used  it 
so  much  or  so  organically  in  their  verse,  or  so  coloured 
their  minds  with  it ;  but  it  is  the  spectacle  and  not  the 
reason  of  science  which  is  thus  used.  The  mazy  dance 
and  Bacchanalia  of  Nature,  however,  do  not  yield  to  the 
verse  such  elements  of  beauty  and  charm  as  are  found 
in  her  ordinary  aspect  of  "  the  painted  vicissitude  "  of 
the  soul.  The  scenes  of  pastoral  interwoven  in  Wood- 
Notes  and  May-Day  have  both  poetical  sweetness  and 
the  wild  flavour  of  Indian  temperament  that  befits 
them  in  fresh  American  verse  still  near  to  the  forest 
primeval.  A  grave  classic  beauty  belongs  to  some  of 


164  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

the  single  images  flashed  suddenly  out,  such  as  that 
supreme  one,  — 

"  O  tenderly  the  haughty  day 
Fills  his  blue  urn  with  fire." 

At  the  other  extreme  is  Hamatreya,  in  which  the 
melancholy  of  the  Earth-might  and  the  shadow  of  the 
grave  over  life  is  caught  in  the  old  race  mood  of  our 
blood ;  no  poem  is  more  purely  Saxon  in  feeling  and  in 
the  fall  of  the  short  runic  lines;  they  might  have 
been  written  in  the  eighth  century,  so  true  they  ring. 
Occasionally  Nature  is  used  as  a  pure  symbol,  of 
which  the  happiest  instance  is  Two  Rivers,  admirable 
for  the  harmonizing  of  the  unseen  river  of  the  eye 
with  the  river  of  the  senses,  so  that  the  stream  of 
eternity  seems  but  the  immortalization  of  the  stream 
of  the  meadows,  and  to  flow  as  it  were  out  of  it.  The 
best  are  those  in  which  the  subject  is  confined  to 
simple  Nature  and  the  thought  flowing  out  of  it 
simply,  of  which  the  type  is  The  Rhodora. 

In  a  second  group  stand  the  poems  of  feeling  both 
personal  and  patriotic.  The  first  section  of  these 
consists  of  the  love  poems,  simple  and  sweet  and 
quite  natural,  such  as  To  Ellen  in  the  South,  the 
poems  that  have  for  their  motive  Emerson's  personal 
habits  and  ways,  such  as  My  Garden,  Oood-by,  TJie 
Apology,  with  which  may  be  classed  also  Terminus, 
and  lastly  the  poems  of  lament  for  his  son  and  his 
brothers.  These  are  all  plain  reading,  and  in  the 
poems  of  bereavement  there  is  the  greatest  intimacy 
that  he  ever  allowed  his  readers  with  his  private  life. 
He  was  fond  of  children,  in  a  gentle  an$  fatherly  way; 
but  the  quality  of  his  fondness  would  not  be  known 


v.]  THE   POEMS  165 

without  the  Tlirenody,  in  which  the  home-life  of  the 
boy,  the  child  in  the  house,  is  so  pathetically  set  forth 
with  sad  insistence  on  little  things  and  the  day's 
common  history,  while  the  father's  grief  and  question 
are  so  tenderly  expressed.  In  the  second  part  the  poem 
becomes  philosophical,  and  has  the  interest  of  showing 
what  comfort  Emerson  found  in  his  divine  theory 
before  the  actual  presence  and  under  the  pressure 
of  the  sharpest  trial  of  impersonal  religion,  and  in 
what  spirit  he  met  it  and  was  freed  from  it.  Of  the 
passages  that  refer  to  his  brothers,  Tlie  Dirge  is  the  poem 
by  which  they  are  remembered,  and  among  English 
household  poems  it  excels  in  reality  of  affection,  in 
domestic  beauty,  and  in  simpleness ;  it  has  the  tones  of 
his  voice  in  it.  The  patriotic  poems  have  enthusiasm 
in  a  high  degree  and  are  especially  rich  in  great  single 
lines  and  apothegms,  like  nuggets,  which  have  been 
caught  up  by  the  people  and  will  long  be  memorable. 
The  dicta  belong  to  the  old  spirit  of  the  plain  democ 
racy  of  New  England,  they  still  feel  the  ardour  of  the 
^Revolution,  and  most  of  them  fall  within  the  sphere 
of  the  rights  of  man ;  these  poems,  nevertheless,  are 
local  rather  than  national,  and  are  the  fruit  of  Concord 
and  Boston,  whose  memories  and  ideals  they  apply  to 
the  times  and  questions  of  the  Civil  War.  They  are 
entirely  intelligible  in  themselves  and  require  no 
comment.  With  them  belongs  the  hymn  which  has 
been  adopted  into  church  services  and  expresses  the 
old  New  England  feeling  for  the  congregational  meet 
ing-house  with  words  in  which  all,  without  distinction 
of  sect  or  creed,  can  join. 

The  philosophical  section  of  Emerson's  poems  is  the 
larger  and  the  characteristic   part,  though  it  is  that 


166  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

which  offers  the  greatest  obstruction  to  his  general 
acceptance ;  both  the  matter  and  the  mode  are  too 
lofty  for  the  ordinary  reader,  but  to  him  who  finds  in 
them  an  appeal  they  yield  a  nobility  and  beauty  and  a 
certain  glory,  as  of  the  largeness  and  brightness  of 
Nature  herself,  such  as  he  will  not  find  elsewhere. 
The  poems  which  are  most  exclusively  philosophical 
and  bare  in  sentiment,  such  as  the  lines  often  prefixed 
to  particular  essays  and  designated  Elements,  are  the 
least  interesting  ;  next  to  these  are  the  poems  each  of 
which  is  devoted  to  some  one  idea  of  his  philosophy  such 
as  Xenophanes,  Guy,  Astrcea,  ToRhea,  Initial,  Daemonic, 
and  Celestial  Love,  and  a  few  others,  which  are  intelli 
gible  only  by  the  key  of  the  Essays  and  are  seldom 
poetically  successful.  The  philosophy  becomes  poeti 
cal  in  proportion  as  personality  and  the  actual  scene 
of  Nature  enter  into  it  as  imagery  and  solving  powers, 
and  as  the  ideas  are  stated  less  in  an  intellectual  and 
definite,  more  in  a  living  and  suggestive  way.  The 
element  of  autobiography,  especially,  adds  force  and 
interest.  Of  the  poems  where  Emerson  is  himself 
most  present,  the  Ode  to  Beauty  is  among  the  first,  and 
best  presents  him  as  a  lover  of  beauty  with  a  truth 
that  makes  the  phrase  apply  to  him  as  rightfully  as  to 
Keats,  however  less  rich  was  his  sense  of  beauty  and 
however  poor  he  was  in  the  passion  for  beauty.  Give 
all  to  Love  is  a  companion  piece  and  full  of  individual 
ity.  The  most  interesting  and  characteristic  in  their 
peculiarity  are  the  two  in  which  he  elaborates  by 
imagery  his  doctrine  of  experience,  of  the  thirst  for 
all  natures  that  he  may  pass  through  them  as  if  in  an 
Indian  transmigration,  and  draw  from  Nature  the  whole 
of  her  being  and  the  meaning  of  all  life,  becoming  one 


v.]  THE   POEMS  167 

with  the  infinite  diversity  of  all,  —  Mithridates  and 
Bacchus.  The  last  is,  perhaps,  his  most  original  poem, 
and  is  a  marvellous  parable  of  the  wine  of  being, 
equal  in  universality  to  the  stream  of  the  Two  Hirers 
and  far  excelling  the  latter  in  imaginative  grasp  and 
compass  ;  it  is  distinguished,  too,  for  its  enthusiasm, 
an  example  of  the  "  mania"  that  Emerson  counselled  as 
the  mood  of  life,  and  showing  an  unsuspected  power  of 
abandonment  in  himself. 

This  doctrine  of  experience,  it  should  be  observed, 
here  definitely  includes  all  sorts  of  experience,  and  with 
it  should  be  joined  the  idea  that  evil  itself  is  a  dis 
cipline  in  good  and  can  work  no  final  harm,  —  one  of 
the  most  difficult  of  doctrines  for  Emerson's  disciples. 
This  is  the  "knowledge"  of  Uriel.  Uriel  was  a  name 
for  himself,  and  the  fable  of  the  poem  refers  to  the 
time  of  his  Divinity  School  Address.  The  special  ex 
pression  is  in  the  quatrain  :  — 

"  Line  in  nature  is  not  found  ; 
Unit  and  universe  are  round  ; 
In  vain  produced,  all  rays  return  ; 
Evil  will  bless,  and  ice  will  burn." 

It  is  echoed  in  Tfie  Park :  — 

*'  Yet  spake  yon  purple  mountain, 
Yet  said  yon  ancient  wood, 
That  Night  or  Day,  that  Love  or  Crime, 
Leads  all  souls  to  the  Good." 

It  rests  on  the  basis  of  the  philosophy  of  Identity, 
of  which  Bramah  is  the  poetical  text,  a  poem  rightly 
selected  by  the  popular  instinct  as  the  quintessence  of 
Emerson,  that  which  is  most  peculiarly  his  own.  In 
that  cryptic  expression,  as  in  a  divine  cypher,  he  has 


168  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

condensed  all  he  knows  ;  the  rest  of  his  writings  are 
only  its  laborious  commentary  and  explanation. 

Most  personal,  too,  are  the  admirable  poems  on  the 
poet  and  his  art,  Merlin  and  Saadi,  both  other  names 
for  himself.  Such  a  theory  of  life  as  he  held  more 
appropriately  finds  a  career  in  poetical  inspiration  and 
enthusiasm  than  elsewhere,  and  seems  more  true  there. 
In  both  these  poems  he  repeats  the  counsels  of  freedom, 
self-reliance,  privacy,  spontaneity,  joyfulness,  surprise, 
and  ease,  and  the  blessedness  of  poverty,  which  are 
found  scattered  less  effectively  throughout  his  works. 
In  one  the  Saxon  strength,  in  the  other  the  Oriental 
colour,  bring  into  play  the  two  most  effective  literary 
traditions  to  which  he  was  under  obligation,  and  afford 
that  distance  of  artistic  atmosphere  which  is  so  often 
an  element  in  romantic  charm ;  Hafiz  is  in  his  poetry 
what  Plotinus  is  in  his  prose,  a  far  horizon  line,  which 
helps  to  give  that  suggestion  of  eternity  in  his  thought, 
of  universality  in  his  truth,  which  characterize  his 
writing.  He  seems  always  to  use  the  iron  pen.  In 
Saadi  he  wears  the  Persian  poet's  guise,  and  in  Merlin 
the  old  harper's,  and  imposes  the  illusion  on  the  mind 
as  when  he  makes  the  pine  wood  and  Monadnock  speak  ; 
and  it  is  always  the  same  voice.  He  knew  as  little  of 
Persian  as  he  knew  of  Buddhism ;  but  his  half  know 
ledge  gave  to  literature  Saadi  in  one  case  and  Bramah 
in  the  other,  and  this  is  more  than  the  learning  of  all 
others  has  yet  accomplished  for  poetry.  In  the  ideal  of 
the  poet  here  set  forth  his  personal  expression  of  phi 
losophy  had  its  most  individual  form,  was  most  blended 
with  himself ;  in  two  other  poems,  T/ie  Problem  and 
Each  and  All,  which  contain  much  personality  also, 
the  philosophy  is  rendered  in  purely  poetical  ways. 


v.]  THE    POEMS  169 

The  last  group  is  composed  of  those  poems  in  which 
the  philosophy  is  put  forth  in  a  universal  statement  of 
large  comprehension.  The  leading  thought  is  here  of 
the  opposition  of  Xature  and  man,  of  the  inadequacy 
of  the  creature  of  the  Universe.  Nature  is  represented 
as  the  Great  Mother  and  man  as  her  child.  The 
burden  of  the  verse  is  that  man  is  a  weakling.  His 
state  is  accounted  for  by  his  division  from  Xature. 
One  easily  recognizes  the  doctrine  as  a  phase  of  the 
general  social  theory  of  the  eighteenth  century  most 
associated  with  the  name  of  Rousseau.  But  to 
Emerson  this  is  his  substitute  for  sin  and  the  Fall  of 
Man;  it  is  not  that  man  has  fallen  off  from  God, 
but  from  Xature.  There  is  a  passage  in  Wood-Notes 
which  states  the  sense  clearly :  — 

"But  thou,  poor  child  !  unbound,  unrhymed, 
Whence  earnest  thou,  misplaced,  mistimed, 
Whence,  O  thou  orphan  and  defrauded  ? 
Is  thy  land  peeled,  thy  realm  marauded  ? 
Who  thee  divorced,  deceived,  and  left  ? 
Thee  of  thy  faith  who  hath  bereft, 
And  torn  the  ensigns  from  thy  brow, 
And  sunk  the  immortal  eye  so  low  ? 
Thy  cheek  too  white,  thy  form  too  slender, 
Thy  gait  too  slow,  thy  habits  tender 
For  royal  man  ;  —  they  thee  confess 
An  exile  from  the  wilderness,  — 
The  hills  where  health  with  health  agrees, 
And  the  wise  soul  expels  disease.  .  .  . 
There  lives  no  man  of  Nature's  worth 
In  the  circle  of  the  earth  ; 
And  to  thine  eye  the  vast  skies  fall, 
Dire  and  satirical, 
On  clucking  hens  and  prating  fools. 
On  thieves,  on  drudges,  and  on  dolls. 
And  thou  shalt  say  to  the  Most  High, 
'  Godhead  !  all  this  astronomy, 


170  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

And  fate  and  practice  and  invention, 
Strong  art  arid  beautiful  pretension, 
This  radiant  pornp  of  sun  and  star, 
Throes  that  were,  and  worlds  that  are, 
Behold  !  were  in  vain  and  in  vain  ;  — 
It  cannot  be,  —  I  will  look  again. 
Surely  now  will  the  curtain  rise, 
And  earth's  fit  tenant  me  surprise  ;  — 
But  the  curtain  doth  not  rise, 
And  Nature  has  miscarried  wholly 
Into  failure,  into  folly.  " 

There  is  a  passage  to  the  same  effect  in  Blight.  Out 
of  this  view  arises  the  capital  idea  of  Emerson's  poetry, 
the  promise  of  the  coming  of  the  ideal  man,  who  shall 
achieve  the  reconcilement  and  be  himself  equal  to 
Nature,  the  purified  and  perfect  soul.  It  is  clearly 
a  Messianic  idea.  The  most  noble  expression  of  it  is 
in  the  £071(7  of  Nature,  and  the  passage  though  long  is 
necessary  to  exhibit  the  idea  properly :  — 

"  But  he,  the  man-child  glorious,  — 
Where  tarries  he  the  while  ? 
The  rainbow  shines  his  harbinger, 
The  sunset  gleams  his  smile. 

"My  boreal  lights  leap  upward, 
Forthright  my  planets  roll, 
And  still  the  man-child  is  not  born, 
The  summit  of  the  whole. 

"  Must  time  and  tide  forever  run  ? 
Will  never  my  winds  go  sleep  in  the  west  ? 
Will  never  my  wheels  which  whirl  the  sun 
And  satellites  have  rest  ? 

"  Too  much  of  donning  and  doffing, 
Too  slow  the  rainbow  fades, 
I  weary  of  my  robe  of  snow, 
My  leaves  and  my  cascades  ; 


v.]  THE  POEMS  171 

"  I  tire  of  globes  and  races, 
Too  long  the  game  is  played  ; 
What  without  him  is  summer's  pomp, 
Or  winter's  frozen  shade  ? 

"  I  travail  in  pain  for  him, 
My  creatures  travail  and  wait ; 
His  couriers  come  by  squadrons. 
He  comes  not  to  the  gate. 

"Twice  I  have  moulded  an  image, 
And  thrice  outstretched  my  hand, 
Made  one  of  day  and  one  of  night 
And  one  of  the  salt  sea-sand. 

"  One  in  a  Judaean  manger, 
And  one  by  Avon  stream, 
One  over  against  the  mouths  of  Nile, 
And  one  in  the  Academe. 

"I  moulded  kings  and  saviours, 
And  bards  o'er  kings  to  rule  ;  — 
But  fell  the  starry  influence  short, 
The  cup  was  never  full. 

u  Yet  whirl  the  glowing  wheels  once  more, 
And  mix  the  bowl  again  ; 
Seethe,  Fate  !  the  ancient  elements, 
Heat,  cold,  wet,  dry,  and  peace  and  pain. 

"  Let  war  and  trade  and  creeds  and  song 
Blend,  ripen  race  on  race, 
The  sunburnt  world  a  man  shall  breed 
Of  all  the  zones  and  countless  days." 

The  same  idea  is  substantially  contained  in  The 
Sphinx,  in  which  the  portrait  of  man  as  he  is  bears 
the  same  lineaments,  and  the  deliverance  is  repre 
sented  as  the  poet's  solving  of  the  riddle  of  Nature  by 
guessing  one  of  her  meanings,  according  to  the  doc 
trine  of  the  microcosm  which  is  so  constant  in  the 


172  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

Essays.  The  poem,  which  is  less  difficult  than  it  ap 
pears,  contains  many  of  Emerson's  characteristic  say 
ings,  and  what  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  condensed 
of  his  great  affirmations,  comprehending  like  Bramah 
his  whole  mind  — 

"Ask  on,  thou  clothed  eternity. 
Time  is  the  false  reply." 

The  Poems  contain  so  many  thoughts  by  the  way, 
so  many  scattered  beauties  and  felicities,  that  any 
general  view  is  inadequate  to  indicate  fully  their 
value.  There  is  wealth  of  detail.  No  expression  of 
the  subjectivity  of  Nature  equals  for  refinement  and 
sublimation  the  lines  in  Monadnock :  — 

"  And  that  these  gray  crags 
Not  on  crags  are  hung, 
But  beads  are  of  a  rosary 
On  prayer  and  music  strung." 

The  moral  dicta,  too,  that  strew  the  pages,  are 
among  the  most  prized  of  his  lines,  and  some  have 
passed  into  undying  permanence ;  of  them  perhaps  the 
greatest  is  the  quatrain  on  duty,  "  So  nigh  is  gran 
deur  to  our  dust,"  and  the  one  on  sacrifice :  — 

u  'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe, 
When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 

And  in  closing  the  little  volume  one  remembers,  too, 
whole  poems  left  neglected  in  this  sketch ;  but  among 
the  best,  Ifermione,.  TJie  Romany  Girl,  Days,  The  Day's 
Nations,  Forerunners,  each  of  which  has  a  unique 
and  memorable  quality  and  sets  forth  some  view  of  his 
philosophy  in  a  characteristic  way  and  poetically. 
Emerson's  poetry  does  not  make  a  wide  appeal ;  it 


v.]  THE   POEMS  173 

has  been  for  a  select  audience,  and  perhaps  it  may  al 
ways  be  so ;  yet  to  some  minds  it  seems  of  a  higher 
value  than  his  prose.  He  was  more  free,  more  com 
pletely  enfranchised,  in  poetry.  He  was  farther  away 
from  his  books,  from  which,  however  afterward  cer 
tified  by  intuitions,  he  did  in  fact  derive  his  ideas. 
The  ideas  are  old ;  nothing  is  fresh  there  except  the 
play  of  his  mind  about  the  ideas.  Indeed,  it  is  an  ob 
vious  observation  that  one  difficulty  about  intuition  as 
expounded  by  Emerson  is  that  it  gives  out  no  new  ideas, 
but  only  rubs  up  old  ones  and  makes  them  shine  in  a 
way  which  after  all  is  still  familiar.  Emerson  is  far 
ther  away  from  his  origins  of  thought  when  he  goes 
into  the  woods.  He  is  also  a  more  natural  man  there, 
and  leaves  the  minister,  too,  well  behind  him.  There 
are  many  of  the  poems  in  which  there  is  no  touch  of 
clergy.  The  poems  began,  too,  at  the  moment  of  his 
first  liberation.  He  had  written  verse  before,  and 
from  boyhood  had  always  practised  it ;  but  the  lines 
were  practically  without  merit  and  of  no  worth  to  the 
world.  When  he  was  thirty-three  years  old,  at  the  time 
he  left  the  church,  his  mind,  which  up  to  that  moment 
had  been  slow  in  unfolding,  suddenly  matured ;  in  the 
ten  years  following  he  did  all  his  thinking,  and  it  may 
be  fairly  said  that  he  had  no  new  ideas  after  he  was 
forty  years  old ;  from  then  on  he  repeated  and  rear 
ranged  the  old.  There  were  favourable  circumstances 
for  development  in  the  beginning  of  this  period.  The 
taking  such  a  step,  decisive  and  important  as  it  was, 
gave  of  itself  a  certain  maturity  of  character ;  the 
renewed  health  with  which  he  returned  from  abroad 
was  a  great  gain  in  conditions ;  the  need  he  was  under 
to  justify  the  step  by  work  outside  the  church,  and 


174  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

the  sense  he  had — and  it  was  great — of  the  dispar 
agement  of  his  talents  and  labours,  the  ostracism  of 
the  University  and  the  unfriendliness  of  the  respect 
able  and  educated  class  in  the  community  about  him, 
the  feeling  of  being  set  aside  —  all  this  combined  to 
stir  the  energy  of  his  mind  to  the  utmost.  He  did  his 
best  writing,  Nature,  then,  and  his  earlier  Addresses 
are  in  some  ways  much  superior  to  the  Essays  in  style ; 
they  are  more  fluid,  and  if  more  contemporary,  they 
are  better  adapted  to  readers. 

It  was  natural  that  his  poetic  instinct  should  share 
this  general  quickening  of  his  powers  and  higher  level 
of  attainment.  One  circumstance  especially  favoured 
its  development:  he  was  now  for  the  first  time  in  a 
home  of  his  own  in  the  country,  with  leisure  in  many 
hours  at  least,  and  filled  with  what  was  to  him  the  new 
delight  of  real  acquaintance  with  nature  in  the  fields 
and  woods.  His  poetry  suddenly  changed  its  quality 
and  became  quite  another  thing  from  what  it  had 
been;  and  concurrently  with  his  development  of  thought 
on  the  side  of  prose,  in  the  same  ten  years  he  composed 
this  group  of  poems,  giving  a  very  different  expression 
to  the  same  ideas  and  blending  with  them  his  own 
life  in  nature.  In  this  poetic  outlet  of  his  genius  he 
found  a  new  liberty ;  in  his  prose  he  was  still  much 
engaged  to  his  past,  and  always  dragged  the  chain  of 
"the  moral  sentiment";  here  he  was  free,  and  his  na 
ture  disclosed  unsuspected  and  fundamental  vigours, 
and  at  times  even  what  he  would  have  called  daemonic 
power.  There  is  a  vehemence,  a  passion  of  life,  in 
Bacchus  that  no  prose  could  have  clothed.  The  whole 
world  takes  on  novelty  in  the  verse ;  on  all  natural  ob 
jects  there  is  a  lustre  as  if  they  were  fresh  bathed 


v.]  THE   POEMS  175 

with  dew  and  morning,  and  there  is  strange  colouring 
in  all;  not  that  he  is  a  colour  poet ;  he  does  not  enamel 
his  lines  as  the  grass  is  enamelled  with  wild  flowers ; 
but  the  verse  is  pervaded  with  the  indescribable  col 
ouring  of  mountain  sides,  and  the  browns  and  greens 
of  wide  country  prospects.  This  lustre  of  nature  is 
one  of  his  prime  and  characteristic  traits.  There  is, 
too,  a  singular  nakedness  of  outline  as  of  things  seen 
in  the  clarity  of  New  England  air.  His  philosophy 
even  helps  him  to  melt  and  fuse  the  scene  at  other 
times,  and  gives  impressionist  effects,  transparencies 
of  nature,  unknown  aspects,  the  stream  of  the  flowing 
azure,  the  drift  of  elemental  heat  over  waking  lands, 
the  insubstantial  and  dreaming  mountain  mass:  all 
this  is  natural  impressionism  in  the  service  of  philoso 
phy.  His  persons,  too,  are  mythic  and  heroic,  and 
the  very  names  yield  up  poetry,  —  Merlin,  Xenophanes, 
Bacchus,  Uriel,  Saadi,  Merops,  Bramah.  The  Poems 
are  full  of  surprise,  also  ;  many  are  original  and  unique 
in  their  originality,  so  that  there  is  no  other  poem 
of  that  sort  in  the  world.  In  the  Poems,  as  a  whole, 
there  are  these  great  and  significant  qualities,  where  the 
theme  is  most  impersonal  and  abstract ;  and,  besides, 
about  this  strange  and  various  rendering  of  nature,  there 
are  in  the  margin,  as  it  were,  scenes  of  human  life  and 
common  days  exquisitely  plain,  tender,  and  truthful. 
The  range  is  wide,  the  moods  are  many ;  Saxon  and 
Arab  blend,  the  chant  of  the  hammer  here,  and  there 
the  Persia  of  the  mind;  here  poems  that  are  atmos 
pheric  in  lustre  and  purity,  and  again  poems  that 
contain  the  sum  of  human  destiny,  —  Bramah,  the 
Messianic  child  of  Nature,  the  Sphinx. 

It  is  futile  to  make  deductions  and  notice  that  with 


176  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

all  this  fine  quality  there  is  defect  of  art  and  defect  of 
taste,  the  harshness  and  roughness  of  the  New  Eng 
land  land  itself,  and  downright  commonplace  and  dog 
gerel  ;  for  it  is  not  with  deductions  that  the  poems 
please,  they  either  please  so  that  the  defects  are  for 
gotten,  or  they  please  not  at  all.  If  one  is  in  an 
artistic  mood  and  cannot  lay  it  off,  these  poems  shall 
seem  impossible, — ding-dong  and  huddle  and  muddle, 
a  blend  of  the  nebulous  and  the  opaque,  sweet  bells 
jangled  out  of  tune  and  harsh ;  but  if  he  follows  one 
of  Emerson'  s  wisest  counsels,  and  remembers  that  to 
fail  in  appreciation  of  another  is  only  to  surrender 
to  one's  own  limitations  and  put  a  term  to  one's  own 
power,  then  another  hour  will  come  when  all  that  seems 
grotesque  and  so  unequal  shall  take  on  again  majesty 
and  mystery  and  brightness,  the  fascination  of  a  new, 
strange,  and  marvellous  world,  the  glow,  the  charm ; 
and  the  reader  shall,  like  — 

"The  lone  seaman  all  the  night 
Sail  astonished  amid  stars." 

Such  are  the  two  moods  in  which  Emerson  is  read, 
but  there  is  no  mixing  of  the  two.  There  is  some 
thing  of  the  same  doubleness  of  impression  in  the 
Essays,  but  it  is  there  much  less  radical.  And  since  the 
appreciation  of  Emerson  is  largely  one  of  temperament, 
if  I  may  speak  personally  as  perhaps  I  ought,  I  own 
that  I  have  little  intellectual  sympathy  with  him  in 
any  way  ;  but  I  feel  in  his  work  the  presence  of  a  great 
mind.  His  is  the  only  great  mind  that  America  has 
produced  in  literature.  His  page  is  as  fresh  in  Japan 
and  by  the  Ganges  as  in  Boston ;  and  it  may  well  be 
that  in  the  blending  of  the  East  and  West  that  must 


v.]  THE  POEMS  177 

finally  come  in  civilization,  the  limitations  that  awaken 
distrust  in  the  Occidental  mind  may  be  advantages 
when  he  is  approached  from  the  Oriental  slope  of 
thought,  and  his  works  may  prove  one  of  the  reconciling 
influences  of  that  larger  world.  His  material  is  per 
manent  ;  there  will  always  be  men  in  his  stage  of  men 
tal  culture  or,  at  least,  of  his  religious  development ; 
his  literary  merit  is  sufficient  to  secure  long  life  to  his 
writings.  For  these  reasons  his  fame  seems  perma 
nent,  and  with  it  his  broad  contact  with  the  minds  of 
men.  However  unconvincing  he  may  be  in  detail,  or 
in  his  general  theory  and  much  of  his  theoretic  counsel, 
he  convinces  men  of  his  greatness.  One  has  often  in 
reading  him  that  feeling  of  eternity  in  the  thought 
which  is  the  sign  royal  of  greatness.  It  is  in  his 
poems  that  I  feel  it  most,  and  find  there  the  flower  of 
his  mind. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TERMINUS 

SOON  after  the  Civil  War  the  vital  energy  of  Emer 
son  began  to  decline.  He  was  now  established  in  his 
fame.  The  dubiousness  with  which  he  had  long  been 
regarded,  the  disparagement  of  him,  had  passed  away. 
The  older  generation  whom  he  had  most  offended  was 
gone  from  the  scene.  The  transcendentalists  and  the 
abolitionists  had  ceased  from  the  land,  and  he  was  no 
longer  encumbered  by  the  ludicrousness  of  the  one  or 
the  unpopularity  of  the  other.  He  had  been  accepted 
into  literature  as  one  of  the  most  effective  writers  of 
his  country.  It  is  true  that  he  had  founded  no  school 
and  was  to  leave  no  disciple  ;  but  he  lectured  through 
out  the  North,  and  the  circulation  of  his  books  had 
become  important ;  it  was  as  a  man  of  letters,  rather 
than  in  any  other  capacity,  that  he  now  held  his  place. 
The  times  had  changed,  too,  at  Harvard  College.  The 
University  which  had  so  long  looked  at  him  with  an  un 
favourable  eye,  though  on  his  side  he  had  continued  a 
loyal  connection  with  it  by  going  up  to  Cambridge  at 
its  annual  occasions  of  the  reassembling  of  the  alumni, 
now  recognized  its  most  distinguished  son,  gave  him 
the  degree  of  LL.D.,  made  him  an  overseer,  in  which 
capacity  he  served  twelve  years,  and  on  the  thirtieth 
anniversary  of  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Address  invited 
him  to  address  the  society  once  more.  He  had  resumed 

178 


CHAP,  vi.]  TERMINUS  179 

lecturing,  from  which  he  derived  his  main  income 
before  the  war  closed,  and  in  the  years  following  he 
visited  the  West  in  winter  and  spoke  every  night  for 
several  weeks  together.  He  published  a  second  col 
lection  of  poems,  May-Day  and  Other  Pieces,  in  1867, 
and  a  volume  of  essays,  Society  and  Solitude,  in  1870. 
They  did  not  represent  new  work,  but  were  made  out 
of  his  accumulated  writings.  His  last  piece  of  original 
composition  seems  to  have  been  the  preface  to  an  edi 
tion  of  Plutarch  published  in  1870.  The  only  fresh 
attempt  he  made  was  The  Natural  History  of  Intellect. 
Harvard  College  had  invited  him  to  give  a  course 
there  to  the  students,  and  he  did  so  in  1870  to  a  class 
of  thirty,  and  the  succeeding  year  he  repeated  the 
course.  He  apparently  meant  to  give  a  particular 
account  of  his  metaphysics,  in  accordance  with  a  plan 
that  had  been  many  years  in  his  mind ;  but  he  suc 
ceeded  only  in  making  up  a  new  arrangement  of 
thoughts  from  his  old  store,  and  he  early  became 
discouraged  and  ended  the  course  by  readings  from 
Oriental  and  Platonistic  writers.  The  lectures  are  in 
teresting  only  as  confirming  his  incapacity  for  meta 
physics.  He  enjoyed,  however,  his  contact  with  the 
students,  as  he  was  always  pleased  to  associate  with 
youth.  It  was  becoming  evident  to  himself  that  his 
vigour  was  waning,  and  signs  of  the  approach  of  age 
were  noticed  by  his  friends.  At  the  close  of  the  lec 
tures  he  made  a  journey  to  California  with  a  pleas 
ant  party  of  family  friends,  and  accompanied  by  his 
daughter,  and  spent  six  weeks  in  seeing  the  country, 
including  the  Yosemite,  during  which  he  also  lectured 
in  San  Francisco. 

He  returned  from   this   trip   much   refreshed,  and 


180  RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

lectured  as  usual  in  Boston  in  the  fall  and  spring, 
and  later  at  Amherst  College.  It  was  on  his  return 
from  this  lecture  that  a  serious  misfortune  befell  him 
in  the  burning  of  his  house.  He  was  already  weak 
ened,  and  the  shock  was  severe.  A  friend  gave  him 
five  thousand  dollars,  and  other  friends  soon  made  a 
joint  gift  of  nearly  twelve  thousand  dollars,  which, 
after  some  reluctance,  he  was  persuaded  to  accept. 
It  was  thought  desirable  that  he  should  take  a  voyage 
while  his  house  was  being  rebuilt,  and  he  sailed  in 
October,  1872,  visited  London  and  Paris,  and  made 
his  way  by  Italy  to  the  Nile,  up  which  he  travelled 
as  far  as  Philae.  He  was,  however,  little  interested 
in  the  journey  and  took  more  pleasure,  as  always,  in 
persons  than  things,  and  though  the  strangeness  of 
Egypt  and  the  sight  of  the  ancient  monuments  pleased 
and  entertained  him,  he  was  ready  at  all  times  to  go 
home.  He  breakfasted  with  the  Khedive,  and  received 
attention  wherever  he  was ;  on  the  way  back  he  met 
many  distinguished  men,  especially  in  Paris  and  in 
England ;  and  in  the  latter  place  he  spoke  once  at  the 
Workingmen's  College.  He  arrived  home  in  May  and 
was  met  at  the  station  by  the  townspeople,  who  escorted 
him  to  the  new  house,  where  an  arch  of  triumph  had 
been  erected ;  and  there  he  found  his  study  with  his 
books  and  the  pictures  and  keepsakes  he  cared  for  in 
their  old  order,  as  if  they  had  never  been  disturbed. 
In  the  winter  he  read  his  Boston  poem  on  the  anniver 
sary  of  the  throwing  of  the  tea  into  the  harbour ;  it 
was  an  old  poem  and  made  over  for  the  occasion.  In 
1874  he  was  nominated  for  the  Lord  Rectorship  of 
Glasgow  University,  and  received  five  hundred  votes 
against  seven  hundred  for  Disraeli.  In  1875  he  was 


vi.]  TERMINUS  181 

made  an  associate  member  of  the  French  Academy. 
His  literary  work  had  been  difficult  for  him,  but 
he  had  published  Parnassus,  an  anthology  of  his 
favourite  pieces,  made  mainly  long  before,  from  1855 
to  1865.  He  now  received  the  friendly  assistance  of 
Mr.  J.  Elliot  Cabot,  who  helped  prepare  for  the  press 
the  volume,  Letters  and  Social  Aims,  published  in  1875. 
From  this  time  Mr.  Cabot,  who  afterward  wrote  the 
family  biography,  aided  him  to  gather  and  arrange  out 
of  old  material  the  new  lectures  which  he  still  gave 
from  time  to  time.  The  most  unfortunate  of  these  oc 
casions  was  his  address  before  the  University  of  Vir 
ginia  in  1876,  when  he  was  unable  to  make  his  voice 
heard,  and  the  audience  began  to  disregard  the  speaker, 
and  the  talk  increasing  and  becoming  general,  Emerson 
observing  the  state  of  affairs  brought  his  lecture  to  an 
abrupt  close.  He,  however,  made  no  complaint,  even 
to  his  friends.  In  1878  he  gave  his  hundredth  lecture 
at  the  Concord  Lyceum.  He  seldom  appeared,  and 
then  often  only  in  a  half-private  way,  in  his  last  years. 
The  failure  of  his  powers,  which  began  with  a  loss  of 
memory  for  words,  became  more  marked ;  his  mind 
gradually  clouded  and  weakened ;  but  he  was  sur 
rounded  with  sheltering  care  and  suffered  no  disturb 
ance  from  his  failings.  He  withdrew  from  society, 
thinking  that  conversation  with  one  who  could  con 
verse  so  slowly  and  with  difficulty  was  unfair,  and  he 
lived  with  his  family  and  old  friends ;  yet  he  would 
sometimes  see  a  new  face,  especially  if  the  visitor  was 
a  young  man.  His  life,  under  these  conditions,  was 
characterized  by  unbroken  placidity  and  cheerfulness ; 
he  was  at  ease,  happy,  and  took  his  short  walks  or 
watched  the  play  of  his  grandchildren  with  an  old 


182  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

man's  pleasure.  Toward  the  close  of  his  life  he  re 
sumed  the  habit  of  going  to  church,  as  he  had  always 
liked  to  have  his  children  go.  His  last  public  ap 
pearances  were  at  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
when  he  read  a  paper  on  Carlyle  in  February,  1881, 
and  at  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy,  when  he  lec 
tured  on  Aristocracy,  in  July  of  the  same  year.  In 
April,  1882,  he  took  cold  and  pneumonia  developed. 
He  died  April  27,  and  three  days  later,  on  Sunday, 
amid  the  general  and  public  mourning  of  the  com 
munity,  he  was  buried  from  the  old  church  of  his 
fathers  in  the  grove  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  near  to  Haw 
thorne  and  Thoreau. 

The  one  impression  left  on  the  mind  by  this  career  of 
nearly  fourscore  years  is  of  the  wholeness  of  the  life ; 
it  is  the  same  trait  that  marks  his  writings ;  the  whole, 
not  the  details,  counts.  It  was  the  life  of  a  New  Eng 
land  citizen,  interested  in  public  affairs,  but  not  ab 
sorbed  by  them ;  employed  in  self-support  by  long  and 
wide  lecturing  in  the  country  at  large  for  which  he 
received  an  inconsiderable  reward,  and  by  writing  a 
few  books  for  which  he  was  ill  paid,  but  managing 
with  the  aid  of  a  small  inherited  competency  to  pay 
his  way.  There  were  no  events  in  his  life,  except  the 
one  decisive  step  of  leaving  the  church,  which  brought 
upon  him  a  state  of  Coventry  for  a  period  and  devel 
oped  his  individual  resources  by  throwing  him  upon 
them.  He  became,  without  seeking,  the  heresiarch 
of  the  transcendentalists,  who  plentifully  exemplified 
the  biblical  theory  that  wisdom  is  the  foolishness  of 
this  world ;  and  later  he  became  an  abolitionist  who 
under  the  stress  of  the  John  Brown  incident  and  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  doubted  the  uses  of  the  actual 


vi.j  TERMINUS  183 

government.  He  was  by  the  character  of  the  times 
thrown  out  of  sympathy  with  both  church  and  state, 
and  thus  found  more  liberty  to  develop  a  non-con 
formist  theory  of  life.  He  was  at  all  points  a  dis 
senter.  Yet,  though  a  preacher,  he  was  not  a  prose- 
lytizer.  He  respected  the  individuality  of  other  men. 
He  was  indifferent  to  the  practical  forms  that  his  ideas 
might  take,  and  watched  the  efforts  going  on  about 
him  with  friendly  and  benevolent  eyes,  but  without 
great  interest.  He  held  mankind  and  their  doings  in 
but  small  respect,  and  reserved  his  optimism  for  a 
distant  posterity.  He  spent  his  life  in  announcing 
an  idea  of  regeneration.  He  mixed  with  the  best 
minds  of  his  time  in  his  own  country  and  met  many 
of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  Europe  and  espe 
cially  of  England  ;  he  travelled  in  early  and  in  middle 
manhood ;  but  he  was  in  no  way  influenced  or  moulded 
by  travel  or  by  the  great  men  he  encountered,  and  he 
remained  entirely  home-bred. 

In  his  personal  nature  there  was  a  strain  of  haughti 
ness  that  belonged  with  the  formality  of  his  manners 
and  his  inherited  pride,  which  underlay  his  inde 
pendence  and  was  in  his  blood ;  the  superiority  with 
which  he  looked  upon  both  society  and  literature,  with 
confident  criticism,  was  allied  to  this ;  and  his  profes 
sion  as  a  clergyman  and  public  teacher  sustained  these 
fundamental  qualities  in  his  character.  There  was  no 
lack  of  tenderness  in  his  heart ;  but  there  was  coldness 
in  his  personal  relations  with  friends  and  distance  in 
his  relations  with  the  stranger.  He  had  not  the  secret 
of  companionableness  with  his  equals,  and  was  rather 
a  listener  than  a  sharer  in  talk.  Those  who  were  near 
to  him,  and  especially  those  of  his  friends  who  were 


184  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

actively  engaged  in  social  reform,  found  an  imsatisfac- 
toriness  in  him,  though,  their  feeling  seldom  reached 
the  point  of  a  practical  expression  of  dissatisfaction. 
He  had  the  power  to  impose  respect  for  himself  under 
all  circumstances,  and  to  do  so  unconsciously.  He 
was  the  more  attached  to  solitude  or  the  privacy  of 
two;  but  he  was  fond  of  society,  also,  and  in  the 
Saturday  Club,  which  began  from  the  nucleus  formed 
about  his  table  at  Parker's,  he  enjoyed  the  best  com 
panionship  of  the  times,  and  was  there  a  valued  mem 
ber.  The  slowness  of  his  temperament  was  a  primary 
fact  in  his  life ;  he  was  slow  in  all  ways :  in  his  motions, 
in  his  speech,  in  his  mental  progress  and  maturing; 
and  his  incapacity  to  mix  with  the  company,  to  give 
himself  in  friendship,  to  enter  actively  into  practical 
affairs  except  under  protest,  and  then  only  in  the 
Anti-Slavery  conflict,  is  a  part  of  this  temperamental 
quality.  He  was  slow  to  think  and  slow  to  write,  as 
is  shown  by  his  methods.  The  life  with  nature  in 
the  Concord  fields  and  woods  harmonized  with  this 
temperament,  and  made  an  environment  that  appealed 
to  him  on  every  side. 

He  had  nothing  of  the  anchorite,  nothing  of  the 
saint  in  his  composition.  In  his  personality  he  was 
very  close  to  the  soil ;  race  was  stamped  upon  his 
countenance.  It  was  also  in  his  marrow.  There  was 
a  fund  in  him,  at  bottom,  of  local  trait,  instinct,  and 
habit  that  can  only  be  called  Yankeeism.  He  was 
a  Yankee  in  the  same  sense  that  Lincoln  was  a 
Westerner.  In  the  anecdotes  about  him  that  give 
personal  details  and  little  trifles,  in  his  phrases  some 
times,  in  his  general  bearing  and  the  character  that 
may  be  called  practical  as  opposed  to  moral,  one  sees 


vi.]  TERMINUS  185 

these  hoine-bred  ways.  He  was  attached  to  plain 
living,  to  independence  in  money  matters,  to  doing 
chores  for  himself ;  he  had  no  patience  with  any  kind 
of  "nonsense''  in  practical  things,  and  liked  best  the 
bare,  old-fashioned  ways  in  which  he  and  his  people 
had  been  bred  for  generations.  "  To  go  without "  was 
a  shibboleth  with  him,  and  no  phrase  is  more  charac 
teristic  of  what  was  most  honest,  proud,  and  strong 
in  the  old  Xew  England  life.  When  he  was  old  he 
evidently  disliked  to  be  taken  too  much  care  of,  and 
on  one  of  the  last  nights  of  his  life  he  insisted  on 
taking  the  firebrands  apart  and  caring  for  the  hearth 
alone  as  was  his  custom.  To  this  plain  simplicity  of 
the  old  days  his  refinement  and  deference  gave  a  strik 
ing  grace;  it  was  like  the  light  on  his  mobile  and 
expressive  face  with  its  large,  firm  features,  which  is 
the  trait  that  most  affected  the  eyes  of  those  who  saw 
and  heard  him.  He  showed  habitually  and  to  all  a 
certain  reverence  that  ennobled  them  in  their  own 
eyes,  and  an  expectancy  of  something  from  them, 
sincere  and  shining  from  his  own  heart  —  the  courtesy 
so  old-fashioned  that  it  seems  now,  like  chivalry,  a 
legend  of  fair  manners.  He  was  of  the  best  that 
democracy  gave  birth  to  on  his  native  soil,  in  both  his 
solid  and  his  rarer  qualities,  in  his  practicality  and  his 
spirituality,  and  his  home  was  the  type  of  a  plain, 
intellectual,  unluxurious  home  of  the  people  of  the 
old  time.  "  Xo  house/*'  he  told  his  children  once,  "  is 
perfect  without  having  a  nook  where  a  fugitive  slave 
can  be  safely  hidden  away " ;  and  in  this  home  were 
many  shelters  for  all  the  world's  poor.  He  was  not 
only  a  man  singularly  free  from  condemnation  for 
others,  whatever  their  defects,  but  he  was  tender  of 


186  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

the  unfortunate,  the  foolish,  and  the  weak.  He  was 
hospitable  not  only  to  guests  but  to  mankind.  If  his 
influence  extends  throughout  the  world,  it  is  but  a 
just -tribute  to  his  heart. 

The  secret  of  his  style  is  his  diction.  It  may  be 
described  as  seventeenth-century  diction,  and  is  de 
rived  from  his  early  familiarity  with  old  English 
writers.  It  fits  both  the  man,  his  profession,  and  the 
quality  of  his  ideas.  He  obtains  by  it  verbal  clear 
ness,  and  in  the  short  sentence  which  he  especially 
cultivated  he  achieves  weight  and  point,  which  are 
both  oratorical  qualities.  He  had  also  in  his  earlier 
writings  fluidity,  not  in  thought  but  in  eloquence,  the 
flow  of  the  orator,  for  comparatively  brief  passages ; 
in  the  Essays  this  quality  is  almost  lost,  owing  to  the 
way  in  which  these  writings  were  composed  by  selec 
tion  and  rearrangement  from  more  extended  composi 
tions  ;  the  method  had  its  advantages,  for  condensation 
and  brilliancy  of  detail,  but  it  necessarily  forfeited  con- 
secutiveness,  harmony,  and  naturalness.  The  posthu 
mous  publications,  made  up  of  uncollected  papers  and 
extracts  from  his  manuscripts,  in  successive  editions 
of  his  complete  works,  add  nothing  to  his  reputation, 
though  they  afford  fuller  illustrations  of  his  life  and 
thought.  In  style,  except  in  the  speeches,  they  are 
inferior.  He  had  the  same  defects  in  prose  as  in 
verse ;  his  taste  was  often  at  fault  in  both  word  and 
phrase,  so  far  as  the  diction  is  concerned,  and  his 
effort  for  effect  in  short  sentences  sometimes  betrayed 
him  to  expressions  that  are  grotesque  and  result  in 
caricature  of  the  thought.  He  was  not  a  great  writer 
in  the  sense  in  which  Bacon,  Montaigne,  or  Pascal  are 
great  writers ;  but  he  was  a  writer  with  greatness  of 


vi.]  TERMINUS  187 

mind,  just  as  he  was  not  a  great  poet,  but  a  poet 
with  greatness  of  imagination. 

He  was  extremely  deficient  in  the  artistic  sense. 
With  regard  to  painting  and  sculpture  he  had  hardly 
more  than  a  rudimentary  sense  of  art,  and  in  this  he 
faithfully  represented  his  people  among  whom  men 
with  the  perception  and  love  of  beauty  in  ideal  forms 
4  were  as  rare  as  good  men  in  Sodom.  The  love  of 
beauty  has  never  been  an  English  trait,  and  is  still 
less  an  American  one.  The  same  deficiency  in  artistic 
sense  made  him  indifferent  to  the  larger  part  of  litera 
ture  in  general,  especially  to  the  classic  and  highly 
refined  forms  of  it.  He  exhibited  that  trait  of  ro 
manticism  which  sought  out  the  primitive  and  the 
distant  and  brought  into  repute  the  early  monuments 
of  the  Korse  and  Oriental  novelties  ;  he  read  with 
delight  Anglo-Saxon  and  early  English  verse,  and  the 
German  translations  of  Persian  poets.  He  was,  never 
theless,  far  from  being  catholic  in  his  tastes,  but  was 
narrowly  bound  in  the  limits  of  his  early  reading  be 
yond  which  in  pure  literature  he  seldom  ventured ;  he 
cared  nothing  for  the  French  or  the  Italian  genius,  in 
which  aesthetic  qualities  predominate,  and  his  attach 
ment  to  the  ancient  classic  poets  was  weak.  The 
startling  sentence,  — "  Perhaps  Homer  and  Milton 
will  be  tin  pans  yet,"  —  foolish  as  it  is,  is  nevertheless 
one  that  rains  judgment  upon  the  sayer.  With  so 
imperfect  a  hold  on  the  qualities  that  make  for  per 
manence  in  literature,  with  so  narrow  a  sympathy  for 
the  fair  forms  of  the  art,  with  such  indifference  to 
beauty  in  artistic  embodiment  and  to  the  ways  and 
means  by  which  ideal  expression  is  obtained,  it  was 
impossible  that  he  should  achieve  more  than  a  limited 


188  RALPH   WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

and  partial  success  as  a  writer,  so  far  as  the  form  of 
his  work  is  concerned. 

The  substance  of  his  writings  has  been  already  pre 
sented,  with  no  more  critical  suggestion  than  was 
necessary  to  define  it,  and  in  as  colourless  a  manner 
as  was  possible.  It  is  proper  to  add  here  one  or 
two  general  considerations.  It  is  quite  true  that  his 
writings,  like  his  life,  make  their  impression  by  their 
wholeness  and  not  by  their  detail.  In  the  individual, 
character  is  above  truth,  and  more  often  than 
reason  determines  the  opinions  of  the  man;  so  here 
the  character  of  Emerson's  works  is  above  their 
intellectual  contents,  and  exerts  an  influence  inde 
pendent  of  the  ideas  which  are  embodied  in  them. 
His  books  are  full  of  personal  ascendency.  It  is 
nevertheless  desirable  that  the  character  of  such  an 
ascendency,  especially  if  as  in  this  case  it  is  moral, 
should  be  plainly  marked  in  order  that  it  may  prevail 
only  in  its  proper  sphere.  It  is  obvious  that  Emerson's 
limitations  are  fundamentally  important ;  they  lie  at 
the  base,  and  in  the  very  origin  and  conception  of  his 
works,  which  are  largely  determined  in  character  by 
them.  The  first  and  most  important  general  consid 
eration  with  respect  to  him  is  his  blindness  to  the  life 
of  humanity  in  the  race.  It  may  be  that  human  fac 
ulty  in  the  individual  is,  as  he  said,  not  progressive 
in  time,  that  is,  that  individual  power  of  intellect,  for 
example,  is  not  greater  now  than  in  the  Greek  ages ; 
but  it  is  also  true  that  the  efficiency  of  this  power  is 
greater  than  it  was  because  of  the  accumulation  of 
knowledge,  the  definition  of  the  field  of  the  problem, 
and  especially  the  elaboration  of  methods  in  the  con 
duct  of  the  intellect,  which  time  has  brought  about. 


vi.]  TERMINUS  189 

It  is  also  true  that  society  achieves  something  which 
the  individual  alone  cannot  accomplish,  and  that  the 
institutional  life  of  the  race  is,  for  civilization,  of 
greater  importance  than  individual  life,  or  at  least  is 
not  a  negligible  thing.  Emerson  so  stated  the  doc 
trine  of  individuality  as  to  deny  institutional  life. 
He  dissolved  mankind  into  its  atoms,  the  private 
person,  and  so  related  the  private  person  to  God  that 
all  truth  in  knowledge  and  all  impulse  in  action  came 
from  this  divine  source.  He  is  sometimes  said  to  have 
employed  the  theory  of  evolution  ;  but  his  conception 
of  evolution  was  a  purely  metaphysical  one,  an  unfold 
ing  of  the  soul  in  combination  with  Nature  by  a  spirit 
ual  law.  Of  the  true  doctrine  of  evolution,  the  modern 
doctrine,  as  an  accumulation  of  power  in  time  so  far 
as  it  relates  to  humanity  and  a  temporal  process  of 
the  material  universe,  Emerson  had  not  the  slightest 
idea ;  under  such  a  conception  half  his  writings  would 
have  been  impossible.  He  made  a  tabula  rasa  of  the 
soul  upon  which  only  God  should  write ;  in  evolution 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  tabula  rasa.  He  first 
isolated  the  soul  and  deprived  it  of  all  ancestral 
benefit ;  and  then  he  left  it  to  Intuition  and  Impulse, 
mystically  conceived,  for  all  knowledge  and  guidance. 
What  the  primitive  mind  thought  of  as  characteristic 
of  the  prophet,  he  extended  to  all  the  tribe ;  this  illu- 
minism  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  old-world  ideas,  and 
had  its  place  in  religious  development ;  but  now  it  is 
little  better  than  an  atavistic  survival.  It  involves 
contempt  for  experience  as  the  guide  of  life.  Em 
erson,  in  this  spirit,  slighted  history,  science,  art  and 
letters,  and  religion,  the  entire  recorded  life  of  the 
race ;  but  civilization  is  an  inheritance,  a  gift  of  the 


190  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

past  to  man,  and  the  individual  adds  but  little  to  it 
even  by  the  best  faculty  and  fortune.  In  setting  up 
the  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  individual  in  the 
form  which  he  employed,  he  put  himself  in  contra 
diction  to  the  evolutionary  conception  of  humanity  at 
every  point.  He  had  a  mind  compact  of  miracle,  and 
intellectually  he  belongs  in  the  age  of  miracle  and  not 
of  science. 

The  second  general  consideration  relates  to  that 
misprision  of  the  human  faculties  which  has  already 
been  alluded  to,  as  integral  in  his  thought.  He  put  the 
law  of  impulse  in  the  place  of  the  will,  and  the  state  of 
ecstasy  as  its  climax  in  the  place  of  reason  and  judg 
ment.  He  was,  however,  saved  from  the  consequences 
of  the  doctrine;  and  just  as,  when  philosophical  ideal 
ism  became  inconvenient  to^him,  he  retired  to  the  or 
dinary  and  everyday  view  of  Nature,  since  he  had  no 
real  grasp  on  metaphysics,  so  when  it  came  to  the  touch 
stone  of  common  action  he  contented  himself  with  giv 
ing  admirable  Baconian  counsels  based  on  the  necessity 
of  accepting  practical  conditions  and  living  in  the  world 
as  it  is.  He  says  in  one  place  that  we  have  almost 
a  total  inexperience  of  ecstasy  as  a  rule  of  life ;  at 
all  events,  it  seems  to  have  been  to  him  more  a  dream 
of  the  mind,  like  a  millennial  hope,  than  a  practical 
mode  of  living.  He  had  great  powers  of  practical 
compromise  with  actuality  in  the  present  world,  and 
the  extremes  of  his  theory  are  held  in  check  by 
his  general  prudence ;  it  is  only  when  the  ^conditions 
are  wholly  ideal  that  he  rises  to  paradox  and  affronts 
the  common  sense  of  men.  In  the  case  of  the  intel 
lect,  he  discredited  the  reasoning  and  logical  faculties 
from  the  beginning,  and  followed  in  this  a  private 


vi.]  TERMINUS  191 

idiosyncrasy.  It  was  consonant,  however,  with  his 
distrust  of  science.  This  was  based,  nevertheless,  on 
a  different  ground,  and  really  proceeded  from  his 
belief  that  the  chief  end  of  the  study  of  Mature  was 
not  to  formulate  the  laws  of  phenomena,  but  to  make 
phenomena  render  up  the  moral  laws  which  they  con 
tained  as  in  a  cryptogram.  He  was  possessed  with 
this  conception  of  Nature.  It  belongs,  like  illuminism 
and  ecstasy,  to  a  primitive  stage  of  the  human  mind, 
though  like  these  it  constantly  reappears  in  the  world. 
His  objection  to  science  was  only  that  it  did  not  make 
moral  philosophy  its  end.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was 
much  impressed  by  the  mechanical  inventions  and  the 
scientific  theories  of  his  time.  In  the  third  place,  with 
regard  to  the  heart,  his  theory  of  love  has  for  its 
central  idea  the  progress  from  a  love  of  persons  to  a 
love  of  God  known  impersonally  in  the  abstractions 
of  Truth,  Beauty,  and  Virtue,  and  this  carried  as  a 
consequence  his  depreciation  of  the  personal  side  of 
love  and  his  rule  that  one  can  love  only  what  is  supe 
rior.  This  part  of  his  thought  seems  to  have  the  least 
reality,  to  be  more  purely  theoretic,  than  anything 
else  except  his  doctrine  of  ecstasy.  It  must  be  ob 
served,  however,  that  it  is  in  opposition  to  the  drift 
of  humanity  in  the  ideal  of  love,  which  crowns  as  its 
noblest  form  the  love  of  the  higher  for  the  lower  that 
in  its  climax  and  consummation  results  in  the  sacrifice 
of  the  higher  for  the  lower.  This  is  the  ideal  of  Chris 
tian  love,  and  in  its  modern  expansion  and  application 
in  hunianitarianism  it  retains  the  features  of  Christian 
tradition;  in  the  thoughts  of  civilized  men  to-day 
throughout  the  world  the  love  of  inferiors  is  the  chief 
grace  of  a  noble  mind.  The  criticism,  however,  is  not 


192  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

to  be  unduly  pressed,  because  here,  as  in  other  parts  of 
his  doctrine,  Emerson's  practice  pleads  against  his 
words.  It  must  be  allowed,  also,  that  with  regard  to  the 
part  of  the  will  and  of  impulse  in  life  his  views  suggest 
the  primacy  of  the  unconscious  in  life,  and  are  so  far 
sympathetic  with  the  study  of  the  unconscious  which 
has  been  so  leading  a  subject  in  the  investigation  and 
speculation  of  the  philosophy  of  the  last  century. 

In  the  field  of  religion  the  power  of  Emerson  seems 
to  lie  in  the  fact  that  he  confirms,  as  it  were,  the 
mystical  moments  that  visit  the  soul  and  gives  to 
them  a  divine  sanction.  All  men  have  such  moments 
in  which  they  are  in  the  presence  of  an  unknown  ele 
ment  in  human  destiny  and  are  subject  to  feeling  of 
which  they  can  make  no  analysis  and  whose  meaning 
they  cannot  read.  Such  moments  are  touched  with 
emotion,  according  to  their  origin  and  the  character 
of  the  individual,  through  all  the  range  from  sublimity 
to  terror;  they  are  moments  of  conviction.  In  gen 
eral,  religion  is  the  key  which  men  apply  to  them,  and 
all  religions  make  great  use  of  them  both  for  faith 
and  discipline ;  the  association  of  religion  with  these 
moments  is  the  main  support  of  all  faiths.  It  is  to 
be  recollected  that  in  Emerson's  case  he  was  placed 
by  birth  and  breeding  in  a  community  where  religion 
had  been  gradually  drying  up  in  its  sources.  Unita- 
rianism  had  already  given  over  a  considerable  part  of 
the  ordinary  Christian  faith,  and  especially  that  por 
tion  in  which  emotion  most  resides,  the  person  and 
authority  of  Christ.  He  required,  therefore,  a  new 
means  of  emotion,  if  he  was  to  retain  his  religious  life. 
He  found  this  means  in  metaphysical  ideas,  which 
allowed  him  to  certify  his  religious  states  of  mind  as 


vi.]  TERMINUS  193 

divine,  precisely  as  a  pagan  might  have  done  without 
Christianity.  There  were  others  besides  himself  in 
the  same  predicament,  and  since  that  time  there  have 
been  many  thousands  whose  religious  nature  has  been 
without  guidance  or  authority,  and  at  a  loss  ;  but  the 
mystical  moments  that  come  to  all  men  still  visit 
them ;  and  in  Emerson's  writings  such  persons  have 
found  a  confirmation  of  their  experience,  a  spiritual 
interpretation  of  it  which  does  not  have  its  value  in 
the  mode  of  explanation,  but  in  the  mere  affirmation 
that  the  experience  is  divine.  The  reader  does  not 
further  inquire  into  the  reasonableness  of  the  doctrine; 
he  has  found  the  gospel  that  serves  him,  and  he  treats 
its  enigmas,  mysteries,  and  obscurities  as  other  reli 
gious  people  treat  the  blind  passages  and  transcendent 
truths  in  their  own  creeds.  All  religion  has  a  ten 
dency  to  prevail  by  putting  the  mind  to  sleep.  The 
important  thing  is  to  be  assured  of  the  divine  and 
infinite  nature  of  the  soul  and  to  have  an  account  of 
the  soul's  personal  experience  of  the  human  mystery 
in  itself  or  in  the  face  of  the  world  at  large.  Emerson 
provides  all  this  with  the  sincerity  and  conviction, 
the  eloquence  and  enthusiasm,  the  authority,  too,  of  a 
great  moral  preacher.  He  is  the  priest  of  those  who 
have  gone  out  of  the  church,  but  who  must  yet  retain 
some  emotional  religious  life,  some  fragment  of  the 
ancient  heavens,  some  literary  expression  of  the  feel 
ing  of  the  divine.  It  is  because  of  the  multitude  of 
such  minds  under  modern  conditions  that  his  Essays 
have  had  so  broad  and  profound  an  influence,  and  the 
tenderness  and  veneration  with  which  his  memory  is 
widely  regarded  are  due  to  the  peculiarly  intimate 
and  personally  precious  service  which  he  has  rendered. 


194  RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  [CHAP. 

A  second  source  of  his  power  is  the  vigour  with 
which  he  has  stood  for  individuality.  Self-reliance 
on  his  lips  is  a  clarion  call.  He  has  the  advantage, 
also,  of  exemplifying  the  cause  in  his  own  person. 
The  absoluteness  with  which  he  cut  all  moorings  ex 
cites  the  mind.  It  is  true  that  it  is  in  the  principle 
of  authority  that  progress  stops;  life  petrifies  there. 
In  church  or  state  or  books,  tradition  is  the  power 
that  binds ;  experiment  is  the  power  that  looses.  Men 
are,  in  general,  willing  enough  to  experiment,  but 
they  are  afraid.  He  vivifies  them.  Energy  in  life  is 
what  he  most  values ;  and  energy  certified  by  success. 
He  has  little  to  say  of  resignation  and  sacrifice.  The  rule 
of  useful  life  seems  to  him  to  be  the  other  way,  —  indus 
try,  self-assertion,  effort  for  the  prize  of  life  ;  and  he 
values  these  prizes,  which  in  his  broad  terms  are  aristoc 
racy  and  property,  and  he  is  content  that  those  who  win 
them  should  have  them.  The  practical  instincts  of 
men  respond  to  this  sure  touch ;  in  worldly  wisdom 
and  the  cunning  of  goods  he  has  sagacity,  and  he  has 
observed  the  course  of  human  events,  where  and  how 
property  goes  and  into  what  hands.  It  is  as  a  proof 
of  energy  that  he  values  it  and  all  other  titles  of 
success.  The  secret  of  a  man's  power  is  to  use  greater 
power,  turning  its  channels  through  himself ;  charac 
ter  is  the  greatest  personal  power,  and  it  is  moral  —  it 
is  moral  power  funded.  Moral  power  indicated  by 
material  success  is  his  reading  of  the  practical  ideal. 
He  is  sound,  too,  in  his  democracy ;  equal  rights  and 
equal  opportunities,  a  fair  field,  wealth  measured  by 
toil,  liberty,  and  a  principle  of  protection  that  shall 
grow  stronger  in  proportion  to  the  weakness  of  the 
individual  and  his  necessity  for  succour  or  defence,  — 


vi.]  TERMINUS  195 

these  are  his  principles,  and  more  manifest  in  the 
spirit  of  his  writings  than  any  particular  expression. 
He  was  closer  to  the  soil  in  his  democracy,  nearer  to 
the  plain  people  of  the  country,  than  any  other  man  of 
letters ;  and  in  his  works  he  embodied  more  vitally 
the  practical  ideal  of  the  American,  industrious,  suc 
cessful,  self-reliant,  not  embarrassed  by  the  past,  not 
disturbed  by  the  future,  confident,  not  afraid.  If  the 
actual  state  of  affairs  discouraged  him,  he  never 
doubted  of  the  issue ;  as  time  went  on,  his  optimism 
as  to  his  country  increased,  and  he  saw  in  it  the  vast 
home  of  labouring  men,  free  and  well-intentioned,  with 
power  to  hold  in  their  own  hands  the  experiment  of 
democracy  in  which  their  welfare  is  the  chief  factor. 
The  fortune  of  the  republic  was  for  him  not  accumu 
lated  wealth  but  widespread  welfare.  He  was  by 
birth  a  patriot,  by  tradition  a  Puritan  democrat,  and 
these  views  were  natural  to  him.  His  Americanism 
undoubtedly  endears  him  to  his  countrymen.  But 
it  is  not  within  narrow  limits  of  political  or 
worldly  wisdom  that  his  influence  and  teachings  have 
their  effect;  but  in  the  invigoration  of  the  personal 
life  with  which  his  pages  are  electric.  No  man  rises 
from  reading  him  without  feeling  more  unshackled. 
To  obey  one's  disposition  is  a  broad  charter,  and 
sends  the  soul  to  sail  all  seas.  The  discontented,  the 
troubled  in  conscience,  the  revolutionary  spirits  of 
all  lands,  are  his  pensioners  ;  the  seed  of  their  thoughts 
is  here,  and  also  the  spirit  that  strengthens  them  in 
lonely  toils,  and  perhaps  in  desperate  tasks,  for  the 
wind  of  the  world  blows  such  winged  seed  into  far 
and  strange  places.  It  is  not  by  intellectual  light  but 
by  this  immense  moral  force  that  his  genius  works 


196  KALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [CHAP. 

in  the  world.  He  was  so  great  because  he  embodied 
the  American  spirit  in  his  works  and  was  himself  a 
plain  and  shining  example  of  it ;  and  an  American 
knows  not  whether  to  revere  more  the  simple  man 
hood  of  his  personal  life  in  his  home  and  in  the 
world,  or  that  spiritual  light  which  shines  from  him, 
and  of  which  the  radiance  flowed  from  him  even  in 
life.  That  light  all  men  who  knew  him  saw  as 
plainly  as  Carlyle  when  he  watched  him  go  up  the 
hill  at  Craigenputtock  and  disappear  over  the  crest 
"like  an  angel." 

His  inspiring  power,  in  religion  to  many  and  in 
practical  life  to  many  more,  has  long  been  recognized 
as  the  substance  of  his  influence  and  fame.  The 
intellectual  part  with  which  it  is  associated  has 
always  been  more  in  question ;  but  the  reader,  from 
whom  it  is  for  the  most  part  veiled,  leaves  the  doubtful 
ideas  and  takes  in  full  measure  the  spirit  that  enfran 
chises  and  strengthens  and  makes  him  not  to  be  afraid ; 
and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  may  imbibe  a  portion 
also  of  Emerson's  sense  of  the  actual  as  a  governing 
if  unwelcome  element  in  life  and  a  corrective  of  all 
theory ;  for  after  all,  revolutionary  power  is  the  best 
of  Emerson's  gifts.  If  in  this  account  which  has 
here  been  given  there  is  much  limitation,  it  proceeds 
from  a  desire  to  arrive  at  the  truth  about  him  in  his 
own  spirit  by  one  who,  the  familiar  lover  of  his 
pages  from  boyhood,  has  by  many  repeated  readings 
through  years  winnowed  this  meaning  from  them. 
He  was  exclusively  a  man  of  religion;  his  other 
thought  is  a  corollary  from  his  religious  premises. 
It  belongs  to  primary  honesty,  therefore,  to  say  that 
he  was  not  a  Christian  in  any  proper  use  of  the 


vi.]  TERMINUS  197 

word;  it  is  a  cardinal  fact  in  considering  his  rela 
tion  to  the  religious  changes  of  the  time ;  rather  he 
was  a  link  in  the  de-Christianization  of  the  world  in 
laying  off  the  vesture  of  old  religion ;  but  it  is  plain 
that  no  modern  mind  can  abide  in  his  ideas.  They 
were  the  tent  where  the  Spirit  rested  for  a  night, 
and  is  now  gone ;  and  who  can  forecast  the  ways  of 
the  Spirit  ?  To  those  who  live  in  the  spirit,  he  will 
long  be,  as  Arnold  said,  the  friend ;  to  the  young 
and  courageous  he  will  be  an  elder  brother  in  the 
tasks  of  life ;  and  in  whatever  land  he  is  read  he  will 
be  the  herald  and  attendant  of  change,  the  son  and 
father  of  Revolution. 


INDEX 


Academy,  French,  associate 
membership  in,  180-181. 

Adams,  Abel,  85,  93. 

Albee,  Mr.,  96. 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  52,  78,  86, 
89,  94,  95. 

,  Mrs.,  94. 

,  Louisa  M.,  80-81 . 

American  Scholar,  The,  ad 
dress,  52. 

Amherst  College  lecture,  180. 

Ancient  and  Honorable  Artil 
lery,  4. 

Anti-Slavery  question,  70-74. 

Apology,  The,  poem,  164. 

"  Apostles  of  the  Newness,"  53. 

Aristocracy,  lecture,  182. 

Aristophanes,  opinion  of,  86. 

Astrcea,  poem,  166. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  The,  contri 
butions  to,  106. 

Austen,  Jane,  86. 


Bacchus,  poem,  167,  174. 
Bancroft,  George,  103. 
Slight,  poem,  170. 
Book  Club,  the,  17. 
Boston  Hymn,  the,  105. 
Bowdoin  prize,  Harvard,  16. 
Boylston  prize,  Harvard,  16. 
Bramah,  poem,  83,  167,  172. 


Brook  Farm,  68-70. 
Brown,  John,  72-73. 
Bulkeley,  Peter,  4. 
Burke,  lecture,  41. 
Burns  Centenary  address,  77- 
78. 

C 

Cabot,  J.  Elliot,  34-35,  86,  181. 
California,  trip  to,  179. 
Canterbury    Lane     residence, 

22-23. 

Card-playing,  dislike  of,  82. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,   39,   43,    58, 

66,  68,  85,  97,  100-101,  102, 

103,  106,  108,  196  ;  paper  on, 

182. 
Channing,  Edward  Tyrrel,  14. 

— ,  William  Ellery,  4,  45,  96- 

97. 

Character  of  Socrates,  The,  es 
say,  16. 
Chardon    Street    Convention, 

53. 

Cherokees,  removal  of,  74. 
Children,  Emerson  and,  80-82, 

95-96,  164-165. 
Christian  Science,  154. 
Civil  War  period,  104-105. 
Clarke,  James  Freeman,  66-67. 
Clough,    Arthur    Hugh,    103- 

104. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  SO,  33,  39-40, 

45,  108. 


199 


200 


INDEX 


Concord,  life  at,  42-43,  64-66, 

80-82,  93-101,  181-183. 
Concord  Hymn,  the,  4L 
Conduct  of  Life,  The,  105-106. 
Conservative,  The,  address,  61. 
Conventicle  Club,  the,  17. 


Dante,  opinion  of,  86. 

Dartmouth  College,  address  at, 
61. 

Days,  poem,  172. 

Day's  Eations,  The,  172. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  103. 

Dial,  TJie,  68,  95,  106. 

Dickens,  Charles,  86. 

Dirge,  The,  poem,  165. 

Discontented  Poet :  a  Masque, 
The,  44. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  180. 

Divinity  School  Address,  Har 
vard,  55-56,  67,  105. 

Don  Quixote,  86. 

Dorr,  classmate,  16. 

E 

Each  and  All,  poem,  168. 
Edinburgh,  lectures  in,  102. 
Egypt,  visit  to,  180. 
Elements,  prefatory  lines,  166. 
Emerson,  Bulkeley  (brother), 

6,26. 
,  Charles  (brother),  6,  26, 

28,  29,  42. 
• ,  Edward  (brother),  6,  16, 

21,  26,  28,  33,  40,  42. 
,  Mary  (aunt),  3,  7,  8-9, 

14,  24. 
,  Ralph  Waldo  :  birth  and 

ancestry,    2-5 ;       death     of 

father,    5-6  ;    brothers,   sis 


ter,  and  mother,  6-7  ;  aunt, 
Miss  Mary  Emerson,  8-9  ; 
removal  of  family  from  Bos 
ton  to  Concord,  9-10 ;  early 
school-life,  11-13  ;  Harvard 
days,  13-18  ;  assistant  at 
brother  William's  school  for 
young  women,  21-22 ;  re 
moval  to  Canterbury  Lane, 
22-23  ;  exclusively  clerical 
surroundings  in  early  life, 
24-25  ;  student  at  Harvard 
Divinity  School,  26-27  ;  suf 
ferings  from  rheumatism  and 
visit  to  South,  27-28  ;  re 
newal  of  theological  studies, 
28 ;  engagement  and  mar 
riage  to  Ellen  Louisa  Tucker, 
29-30  ;  ordained  colleague  of 
Dr.  Ware  at  Old  North 
Church,  Boston,  29-30  ; 
trend  of  mental  develop 
ment,  30-33  ;  proposes  dis 
continuance  of  use  of  the 
elements  in  celebrating  Com 
munion,  and  consequent  res 
ignation,  35-37  ;  death  of 
wife,  38 ;  first  journey  abroad 
(1831),  38-39;  meets  Car- 
lyle,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth, 
and  Landor,  39-40  ;  income 
from  wife's  fortune,  40 ;  lec 
tures  during  1833-1835,  41  ; 
Concord  Hymn,  41 ;  occa 
sional  preaching,  especially 
at  New  Bedford,  41-42  ;  set 
tles  permanently  at  Concord, 
and  marries  Lydia  Jackson, 
42-43;  varying  fates  of 
brothers,  42-43  ;  helps  in 
troduce  Carlyle  to  American 
readers,  43;  poetic  side  of 


INDEX 


201 


character,  44;  intellectually 
a  moralist,  and  a  mystic 
devotee,  45 ;  attractions  of 
transcendentalism,  45-40  ; 
publication  of  Mature,  48  ; 
analysis  and  critical  consid 
eration  of  Nature,  47-51  ; 
delivers  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Address  (1837),  51-52;  con 
nection  with  the  Transcen- 
dentalists,52-54 ;  the  Divinity 
School  Address  (1838),  55- 
50  ;  The  Method  of  Xature 
address  (1841),  59^61  ;  sub 
sequent  addresses  and  their 
significance,  61-&-  ;  home 
life  in  Concord,  64  -GO  ;  the 
Transcendental  Club  and 
Tlie  Dial,  07-08 ;  Brook 
Farm,  68-70;  the  Anti- 
Slavery  question,  70-74  ; 
Lowell's  descri  tion  of 
speeches,  75-78  ,  N.  P. 
Willis's.  78  ;  lee  uring  tours 
in  the  West,  79-80  ;  children 
of,  80 ;  fondnoss  for  chil 
dren.  81-82  ;  personal  ap 
pearance,  82-  33  ;  trait  of 
humour,  83-F4 ;  walking, 
shooting,  smoking,  and  busi 
ness  habits,  84-85;  reading 
and  writing  habits,  85-87  ; 
mode  of  study  and  composi 
tion,  88-90 ;  friendships,  90- 
97  ;  lack  of  magnetism,  97- 
100  ;  as  a  letter-writer  and 
correspondent,  100-101  ;  sec 
ond  journey  abroad  (1847), 
102-104  ;  revisits  Carlyle  and 
meets  Leigh  Hunt,  De  Quin- 
cey,  and  dough,  103-104  ; 
effect  of  Civil  War  on  affairs, 


104  ;  visits  Washington  and 
talks  with  Lincoln,  105  ; 
works  published  from  1836 
to  1865,  105-106  ;  examina 
tion  of  the  Essays,  107  ff.  ; 
passage  on  the  nature  of  the 
soul  quoted,  146-147  ;  the 
poetic  side,  158  ff.;  analysis 
of  poems,  161-177  ;  beginning 
of  decline  of  vital  energy, 
178  ;  honours  from  Harvard, 
178  ;  second  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Address  (1867),  178;  Cali- 
fornian  trip,  179 ;  burning 
of  home  and  third  journey 
abroad  (1872),  180 ;  candi 
dacy  for  Lord  Rectorship  of 
Glasgow  University,  180  ; 
associate  member  of  French 
Academy,  181  ;  later  publi 
cations  {Parnassus,  Letters 
and  Social  Aims},  181 ;  inci 
dent  of  University  of  Vir 
ginia  address,  181  ;  last 
public  appearances,  and 
death,  182  ;  impression  left 
by  career,  and  conclusion, 
182-197. 

Emerson,    Mrs.   Ralph  Waldo 
(first  wife).  29-30,  38. 
-  ,  Mrs.  Ralph  Waldo  (sec 
ond  wife),  42,  60. 

,  Waldo  (son),  80-81. 

, (son),  78-79,  80,  82. 

,  William     (grandfather) , 

3-4. 

,  William  (father),  4,  5-6. 


,  Mrs.  William  (mother) , 

3,  0,  40,  43,  80. 
,    William     (brother),   6, 


13,  14.  15,  16,  21,  22,  25,  27, 
33,  36. 


202 


INDEX 


English  Literature,  lecture,  41. 

English  Traits,  105. 

Essays,  105,  107-157,  174,  186. 

European  journey,  first  (1831), 
38-40;  second  (1847),  102- 
104  ;  third  (1872),  180. 

Everett,  Edward,  12,  18-21. 


Fire,  loss  of  home  by,  180. 
First  Parish  Church,  Boston,  4. 
First  Philosophy,  the,  109. 
Forerunners,  poem,  172. 
Fortus,  poem,  11. 
France,  visits  to,  39,  102-104, 

180  ;  Essays  known  in,  106. 
French  literature,  85. 
Friendship,  essay,  150. 
Fruitlands  experiment,  94. 
Fugitive   Slave   Law  address, 

72,  73. 
Fuller,   Margaret,   68,  83,  95, 

97,  98  ;  Memoirs  of,  106. 
Furness,  Dr.,  10-11,  83. 

G 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  74. 
Gentleman-farming,  70. 
George  Fox,  lecture,  41. 
German  literature,  85. 
Give  All  to  Love,  poem,  166. 
Glasgow,    Lord   Rectorship  of 

University  of,  180. 
Goethe,  25,  54,  85. 
Good-by,  poem,  164. 
Gourdin,  classmate,  16. 
Guy,  poem,  166. 

H 

Hafiz,  obligations  to,  168. 
Hamatreya,  poem,  164. 


Harvard  College,  life  as  stu 
dent  at,  13-18  ;  addresses  at, 
51-52,  55,  105,  178  ;  classical 
instruction  at,  85 ;  soldiers 
of,  105 ;  recognition  and 
honours  from,  178,  179. 

Haskins,  Ruth.  See  Emerson, 
Mrs.  William  (mother). 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  53,  83, 
97-98. 

Hermione,  poem,  172. 

Heroism,  lecture,  74. 

Hoar,  Elizabeth,  93-94. 

Hoar,  Samuel,  72. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  90, 
98. 

Hosmer,  farmer,  70. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  103. 


Initial,  Daemonic,  and  Celestial 

Love,  poem,  166. 
Ireland,  Alexander,  102. 
Italy,  travels  in,  39,  180. 
Italy,  lecture,  41. 


Jackson,  Lydia.    See  Emerson, 

Mrs.  R.  W.  (second  wife). 
James,  Henry,  Sr.,  98. 

K 

Kansas,  the  arming  of  settlers 

in,  72. 

Keats,  point  of  analogy  to,  166. 
Khedive,  breakfast  with,  180. 
Kossuth,  Louis,  74. 


Landor,  Walter  Savage,  39-40, 

108. 
Lectures,  first,  41 ;   in  Boston 


INDEX 


203 


and  vicinity,  61,  05,  104, 
180,  181  ;  on  Slavery,  71- 
75;  in  the  West,  79-80,  170 ; 
in  Great  Britain,  102;  at 
Harvard  College,  179 ;  at 
Amherst  College,  180  ;  last 
courses  of,  181. 

Letters  and  Social  Aims,  181. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  105. 

Literary  Ethics,  address,  61. 

London,  addresses  in,  102,  180. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth, 
98. 

Love,  essay,  150. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  51,  53, 
75-78,  98. 

Luther,  lecture,  41. 


M 

Man  the  Reformer,  address,  61. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  70,  99. 

Massachusetts  Historical  So 
ciety  paper,  182. 

Massachusetts  Quarterly,  con 
nection  with,  68. 

May-Day,  poem,  163. 

May-Day  and  Other  Pieces,  179. 

Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller, 
106. 

Merlin,  poem,  168. 

Method  of  Mature,  The,  ad 
dress,  59-61. 

Michael  Angela,  lecture,  41. 

Milton,  lecture,  41. 

Miscellanies,  105. 

Mithridates,  poem,  167. 

Monadnock,  poem,  172. 

Montaigne,  influence  of,  32, 
107-108. 

Monthly  Anthology,  5. 

Moody,  Father,  4. 


Morley,  John,  147. 
Murat,  Achille,  28. 
My  Garden,  poem,  164. 

N 

Natural  History  of  Intellect, 
The,  109,  179. 

Nature,  first  book,  46-51,  61, 
105,  174. 

New  Bedford,  sermons  at,  41- 
42. 

New  Jerusalem  Church,  58. 

Newton,  residence  at,  40. 

Nile,  trip  up  the,  180. 

North  American  Review,  con 
tributions  to,  106. 

Norton,  Dr.  Andrews,  56. 

O 

Ode  to  Scanty,  166. 
Old  Manse,  the,  10,  28,  42. 
Old    North    Church,    Boston, 

29-30,  35-38,  44. 
Osman,  ideal  poet,  44,  99-100, 

160. 


Paris,  visits  to,  39,  104,  180. 
Park,  The,  poem,  167. 
Parker,  Theodore,  104. 
Parnassus,  anthology,  181. 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  Address,  first 

(1837),  51-52,  105;    second 

(1867),  178. 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem  (1834), 

41. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  74. 
Pilgrims  to  Concord,  98-101. 
Plato,  85. 

Plotinus,  influence  of,  168. 
Plutarch,  82,  85. 
Poems,  105,  158-177. 


204 


INDEX 


Present  State  of  Ethical  Phi 
losophy,  The,  essay,  16. 
Problem,  The,  poem,  168. 
Pythologian  Society,  the,  17. 

Q 

Quinet,    attention  of    French 
called  to  Essays  by,  106. 


R 


Relation  of  Man  to  the  Globe, 

The,  lecture,  41. 
Representative  Men,  105. 
Rhodora,  The,  164. 
Ripley,  Dr.  Ezra,  9-10,  28,  36, 

42. 

Ripley,  George,  67,  69,  70. 
Ripley,  Samuel,  14,  27. 
Romany  Girl,  The,  poem,  172. 


Saadi,  poem,  168. 
Sailors'  Mission,  the,  34. 
San  Francisco  lecture,  179. 
Sartor  Resartus,  preface  to,  43. 
Saturday  Club,  the,  184. 
Sea  Shore,  poem,  162. 
Self-portraiture,  Emerson's,  44. 
Shelley,  86. 

Slavery,  speeches  on,  71-74. 
Snow  Storm,  poem,  162. 
Society  and  Solitude,   essays, 

179. 
Song  of  Nature,  poem,    170- 

171. 

Sphinx,  The,  poem,  171. 
Sumner,  Charles,  72. 
Swedenborg,   mental  response 

to,  30. 


Taylor,  Father,  34. 
Terminus,  poem,  164. 
Tests  of  Great  Men,  lecture,  41. 
Thomson,  James,  161. 
Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  68,  87,  96- 

97;  literary  remains  of,  106. 
TJirenody,  poem,  81,  165. 
Ticknor,  George,  15. 
Times,  The,  address,  61. 
To  Ellen  in  the  South,  poem, 

164. 

To  Rhcea,  poem,  166. 
Transcendental  Club,  the,  67. 
Transcendentalism,  44-45,  52- 

53,  150. 

Transcendentalist,     The,     ad 
dress,  61. 
Travel,  opinions  on,  39,    104, 

149,  180. 
Tucker,    Ellen    Louisa.      See 

Emerson,  Mrs.  R.  W.  (first 

wife). 
Two  Rivers,  poem,  164,  167. 

U 

University  of  Virginia  address, 

181. 
Uriel,  poem,  167. 


Venice,  visit  to  and  opinion  of, 
39. 

W 

Waltham,  first  sermon  at,  27 ; 

address  at,  72. 

Ware,  Rev.  Henry,  29-30,  56. 
Washington,  lecture  in,  106. 


INDEX 


205 


Water,  lecture,  41. 
Waterville  College,  address  at, 

50-61. 

Webster,  Daniel,  73. 
Whittier,  John  G.,  98,  161. 
Willis,  Nathaniel  P.,  78. 
Wood-Notes,  poem,  165,  160. 
Wordsworth,   William,    39-40 

108. 


Xenophanes,  poem,  166. 

Y 

Yankeeism,  element  of,  83-84, 
184. 

Yosemite  tour,  179. 

Young  American,  The  ad 
dress,  61. 


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